


A Nightmarish Reality

by lilmisssassy333



Category: Ninjago - Fandom
Genre: Any relationships mentioned are only briefly touched on, F/M, Ninjago Nightmare Au, There are brief mentions of my own Oc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 41,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilmisssassy333/pseuds/lilmisssassy333
Summary: Abandoned. Forgotten. They would rather have been hated by the entire world than have to be left like this, with their realm left forgotten. But as the years passed, the spirit of this realm survived. Now it is a race against time, every second counting. If they don’t act fast enough, the original realm of Ninjago may become just like its nightmare counterpart. (Also posted on Quotev. Inspired by the Ninjago Nightmare art by Serpyra, formerly known as Prpldragon)
Relationships: Nya/Jay, fan character/canon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

Lloyd turned over in his bed, looking over to the glowing red alarm clock beside his bed. It read 11:45 pm, and he was still awake and not tired at all. With a slightly dramatic sigh, he got out of bed and threw on some clothes. Maybe some fresh air or a glass of warm milk would do him some good, he needed his rest. He and the others had sunrise exercises in the morning, and that would be no fun with no sleep!

Walking out of his and the others’ room, Lloyd went to see if they had any milk he could heat up to drink. Nope, the fridge was almost empty. He groaned the fire ninja’s name, since he was the one who was supposed to go and get some groceries today, but he must have ignored Sensei and Zane. Again. 

Lloyd rubbed his face with his hands. The warm milk was out of the question. It looked like the fresh air idea was what was up next. With a soft sigh, Lloyd grabbed his phone to call the others if something happened. Then again, he could fend for himself if something happened, he’s a ninja after all! 

Lloyd didn’t know why he was suddenly so awake. He had been plenty tired before going to bed. Throughout the day it was rather normal. Starting to move in to the new temple, training, playing some games with the others in their down time, and just life in general would make anyone exhausted! So it was odd he woke up in the middle of the night without a hint of exhaustion.

There were some things on his mind. But not many. The events of Morro and the ghosts were still fresh on his mind, and the recent debacle with Cole and the day of the departed was recent as well. His thoughts drifted from things to thing as he walked. The briefly flutter over the thoughts of a certain someone before he got suddenly snapped out of his thoughts as if he had hit a brick wall.

Lloyd has come across what looked like an old mansion. His eyebrows became furrowed. He didn’t remember this place... and it looks old, so there is little to no possibility of it having just been built. The place, as said, was big and old. But something about the place looked... familiar. Like he had seen it before. It had what looked to be an all black exterior, but he couldn’t tell since it was so dark. There was also a large cast iron gate, the kind you would see in almost every cliche horror movie. 

The teen ninja put his hand on the gate only for it to swing open with a loud creaking noise, beckoning him inside. Lloyd stepped back, his mind and heart telling him to get out of there. But there was this indescribable force urging him, imploring him to go inside. Lloyd pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight to light his path. 

Lloyd took a few steps forward. His pace was slow, but steady. Once he was all the way inside, the gate slowly shut. But he could not tell. There was no creaking this time, unlike when the gate had opened. How peculiar... 

It took a few minutes due to Lloyd’s slow pace, but when he reached the door, something even more peculiar happened. There was a brass knocker on the door in the shape of a dark dragon’s head. It looked... evil. It was a little musty, so out of sheer curiosity, Lloyd cleaned it up with the cloth of his shirt. When he looked back into it, he saw a more distorted version of himself than he could even dream of. 

The Lloyd staring back at him looked similar in facial features, but had these tattoos or markings or whatever all over his face. Three stripe like ones across his nose and then some others around his eyes and neck. They looked like flames..... And his eyes were a piercing red, hair being purple. 

Lloyd backed up and rubbed his eyes, his reflection doing the same until he opened his eyes again. His reflection was normal again. His hair was blonde, eyes were green, and he had no tattoos of any kind. The ninja let out a relieved sigh at this. His reflection made him feel... unnerved. He would have laughed his appearance off, thinking it was ridiculous now. But the feeling he got... something just was not right. 

His heart, mind and pretty much all of his body were screaming at Lloyd again. Get out of here, this is not safe! Something is dreadfully wrong here! You might get hurt! But the same unseen force prodded Lloyd on. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. He’ll be fine. Right? Right.

The son of Garmadon walked into the abandoned place and started to look around. There seemed to be a lot of purple and little bits of gold. But the gold had been dulled greatly. He dragged his fingers across the surface, removing some of the grime away to reveal the gold underneath. How old was this place....? 

He was getting more and more suspicious that there was far more to this than he believed with every passing second. And his feelings were confirmed to be correct as soon as he heard a laugh echo throughout the house. It sounded..... similar to his own. But without the joy. 

Lloyd drew out a small pocket knife, getting into a defensive stance. He waited silently, waiting for the laugh to return and echo across the walls, or any other noise for that matter. The laugh came back, as Lloyd expected it would, and it sounded more mocking this time. 

“Who are you?!” Lloyd called out, looking around now. He usually would have stayed quiet to listen for any indications of where the noise was coming from, but the echoes made that impossible. 

“Aww, don’t you recognize me?” The voice continued to sound mocking. Lloyd growled, recognizing the voice as his own. But..... it sounded a bit deeper. More mature. But at the same time a bit bratty...... 

“Who. Are. You?!” Lloyd repeated his question, looking around until his reflection caught his eye. He turned slowly towards one of the golden pieces, seeing his reflection in the same stance as him until his appearance changed to that of what he saw outside. 

The reflection dusted himself and stood upright, Lloyd staying in a battle stance. 

“You can stop doing that. I’m not here to hurt you, I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to in the first place.” The reflection rolled his eyes and Lloyd narrowed his own.

“You never answered my question. Who are you, and what do you want?!” Lloyd stayed in his position, ready to attack at any moment now. 

“Unless you can’t tell, I’m you.” The reflection rolled his eyes again. He didn’t seem to be impressed with his counterpart and orginal. “But I’m you from a different realm. The Nightmare Realm.”

“Then, Nightmare, What do you want? Why are you here and not in your own realm?” Lloyd took to calling him Nightmare, straightening up a bit now. He was only a reflection, he couldn’t hurt him!

“First off; my name is Dark Lord Lloyd.” Nightmare sneered at Lloyd, but the original internally decided to still call him that. Just to spite him. “But anyway, I was curious to see how my original turned out, and I am thoroughly disappointed. You could have been so much more than.... this.” Nightmare gestured to Lloyd, his tone still mocking. Lloyd narrowed his eyes, clearly unimpressed. “I also wanted to see how Ninjago would have been if father had not succeeded.”

“Wait..... dad succeeded in your realm?!” Lloyd sounded incredulous, dropping the blade to the ground as his eyes widened. 

“Yes, he did. He became king of Ninjago, got Mom back and made her his queen, then made me his prince and second in command.” Nightmare’s voice became filled with pride and his look was smug. His chest even had puffed up a little! That smug little- “Take a look and see for yourself. You’ll see what happened to your precious friends here, too~”

Lloyd rushed over to the golden piece, where Nightmare had disappeared and different images replaced him. The green ninja stared into it, the images slowly making sense to him.

The first was of Kai. He was at first fighting alongside him in the final battle, before he tripped and fell. The next was of Zane. He was trying to fight off some stone warriors, but he could not fight any longer and got captured. Jay was working alongside Cole, fighting anyone who came near the others. But when they started to fall...... they got separated. Lloyd covered his mouth as even his own self got captured and the pictures faded. 

New ones replaced them. One of them being Garmadon standing victorious in-

“The Garmatron.......” Lloyd suddenly remembered why the place looked so familiar to him. It looked like something the Garmatron could have created. He swallowed heavily.

The next picture showed the different punishments all the ninja received, except Lloyd. Kai was banished to the Underworld, where he became Emperor Kai of the skeletons. Cole was bitten by a serpentine and became Coltrane. Zane got some of his wires ripped out and others replaced. That made him go insane, or InZane. And Jay..... Jay was killed. They just gave him the electric chair and killed him. But he was brought back to life with the help of some robotics, making him DeadBolt.

But what happened to Nya....? She managed to get away. She tried to bring Kai and Zane back to their wits, but only got her left eye burned by her own brother. There were bandages over her eye in the final picture, and she was crying.

Nya looked just as terrified as Lloyd did right then.

“I guess I lied earlier.” Nightmare’s voice rang out through the place again. Lloyd was hanging his head, his fists clenched together. He did not feel up to listening to Nightmare and his bratty tone again, and even he could tell. So Nightmare cut to the chase. “I am here for more than just seeing how you and Ninjago turned out.”

“Then what did you come here to do?” Lloyd was eerily calm.

“I came here to tell you that I am a part of you. One of your basic components,” Lloyd looked back into the gold piece at this. He saw half of his face and half of Nightmare’s. “I am something you will never get rid of. And my friends are a part of yours. We are tired of being a forgotten realm, an abandoned one.” His tone went from bratty to nasty. Lloyd felt his eyes widen again when both of their reflections vanished. 

Lloyd tried to find his reflection again as a black shadow crossed against the wall, landing on his shoulder. 

“So I’m here to make sure we are never forgotten again,” Nightmare materialized and Lloyd could feel his grip on the back of his shirt. 

But the green ninja was not about to go down so easily. 

Lloyd spun around and kicked Nightmare off of him, the other growling and landing. One would think this would be a difficult battle, since they are the same people, but Dark Lord Lloyd/Nightmare was never possessed and never learned airjitsu. The real Lloyd already had a leg up over his counterpart. 

But Nightmare was not in the mood for actually fighting his original. Lloyd attempted to attack him, but he disappeared into the shadows again, his mocking laughter returning. 

“I will stop you! You are not me, we are not the same!” Lloyd snarled, looking around for him and seeing his shadow cross some purple curtains. After picking up his blade, he went to slash Nightmare, but only got the curtains as the laughter continued.

“I will always be a part of you, Lloyd Garmadon! Not matter what you say or do, I will be a part of you that will never leave you!” 

Lloyd fell to his knees, the cackling echoing through the place. He held his head in his hands, his vision starting to swirl. He couldn't take this. The idea of his friends becoming like those monsters.... He couldn’t let that happen! But was it already happening?! Was it too late?! Had the other nightmares infiltrated the hearts and minds of his friends like his own was trying to do to him?!

All of these questions continued to swirl in his mind as Wu stared to bang a gong, the green ninja shooting up in bed. He rubbed his eyes, not believing this. Was..... was all that had just happened only a Nightmare?

He got out of bed and went to his clothes that he had worn. They were still in their normal spot, with no signs of being worn. His phone was fully charged. 

Lloyd slowly walked out with the others, rubbing one of his eyes. Kai looked over to him to ask why he looked so tired, but dropped his jaw when he saw his friend’s kind green eyes turn an evil red.

Author’s note; This is the one shot I made a while ago that inspired this piece of fiction. It is also now the first chapter, so that there’s more information for this coming in. The original Nightmare Ninjago au was created and owned by an artist by the name of prpldragon. She took down her old art. I do not claim this au as my own, and the only things I do own of it are the fan art I made of it, this piece of fiction, and the cosplay I did a while back. If there are any problems, you may contact me by private message.


	2. Is This a Dream...?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nya is the next ninja to experience an event set in a different realm. When she comes to, shit hits the fan, and the fun starts.

Nya looked down at her hands, recognizing them as her own. But when she looked up, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Well, eye. Her left eye was blocked out by bandages, but these bandages were somewhat covered by some long, black hair. Her right eye was still the same brilliant blue it always has been, but she seemed to have a few more scars on her body than she remembered. That was strange. Very much so. 

When she turned around to assess her surroundings, she found a small room. There was a bed along with some clothes thrown over a chair. What struck her as the most important thing in the room was a framed picture. She walked over to the picture and lifted it up. It was of her and her team. Kai, her brother. Cole, the original leader of the team. Jay, her boyfriend. Zane, her robotic friend. Sensei Wu, her teacher. And Lloyd, the green ninja and current leader of the ninja team. Of course she was there as well but there was no need to comment on it. She could remember the day they took that photo with Lloyd. They all wanted something to remind them of the good times they had while early on as a team.

It was a wonderful reminder of how things were back then.

She smiled softly at the picture and gently set it down, not yet noticing the tear stains littered over the frame and the picture itself.

Before she had the chance to go through anything else, there was a knock on the door. “Nya? We need you outside. Now. It’s urgent!” The voice wasn’t one she recognized. But her body somehow started to act on its own, walking to the door without her permission. Before the water ninja could even begin to comprehend this, the door was opened by her own hand to reveal a girl. She seemed to be a few years younger than her, but her hair was pulled up in a similar way to that of her own. But instead of a silver hairband, she had a rubberband and some chop sticks holding her hair in place. Her clothes, which seemed to have been a bright green at some point in her life, had the word ‘hope’ written clearly on it. Her golden eyes were sad, but had an edge to them like that of a war hardened hero. 

“What is it, Harumi?” Nya’s voice asked this, but Nya was only watching on. She had a feeling that this was a dream now, but something told her that there was a significance to this story that she would need to remember for later on. Knowing her intuition was right many times, she kept her own mouth shut and watched.

“Morro returned with some news. You need to hear it for yourself.” The girl started to lead the way, Nya quickly following her. 

In her mind, Nya started to question this dream. Morro? How had he returned? Who was this girl? And why did her own body have a bandaged eye...? She had no time to try to think of a logical answer to these questions, due to being approached by Morro. 

The girl named Harumi stopped and nodded to the ghost, the ghost merely nodding back. Nya looked her old foe over, seeing that his own appearance hadn’t changed a bit. But something felt... off. This didn’t feel like the Morro she had once known. 

“Nya, I have bad news.” Morro sighed out angrily, running his fingers through his black hair. “They found one of our suppliers. Dr. Hunter is out of the picture, we don’t have any access to medicine now. They are getting closer to us, that’s the third supplier they’ve found out this week.” 

Nya could feel her lips purse at this information. “And what of the captives? Do we know if they have given them any of our information?”

“We’re thinking that they are either slowly giving them that sort of info to buy us some time to try to find a way to get them back to normal, or the captives are keeping quiet and they found out about our suppliers some other way.”

Nya tried to wrap her head around all of the information that she had been given. From what she could gather, they were some sort of rebellion. ‘They’ and ‘them’ were their enemies that they were rebelling against. Whoever it was, they must be pretty bad for Morro to have joined. The one question that she now knew she had to have answered was; who were they fighting against? Who were the enemies here? 

“Little lady, things are getting tougher.” A new, but all too familiar voice, soon chimed in. Nya sighed softly. Dareth. “Are you sure that you don’t want to try to compromise with them? It might save us all.” 

“No.” Her voice, Harumi’s voice, and Morro’s chimed in all together. 

“We can’t give in, we have to keep fighting.”

“There is so much more that we are fighting for than just for ourselves.”

“We have to do what it takes to free Ninjago. As much as it hurts me to say, we have to focus on the good of everyone.” Harumi’s voice was hurt and desperate, Morro’s was passionate, and Nya’s was overflowing with all of these emotions and more.

The air was thick and heavy for a few seconds. No one spoke. Eyes darted around the room before Nya finally spoke again. 

“Even if it takes killing them. We will do what we must to bring Ninjago back to the light.” Nya finally whispered out. Dareth slowly nodding his head, rubbing the back of his neck. He seemed to have regretted saying what he did. 

“Let’s try to not think about that.” The self proclaimed brown ninja sighed. “We all know this hurts. A lot.”

Harumi came over and gently set a hand on Nya’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “You have us and the rest of Ninjago behind you.” 

Nya took a deep breath, both in her body and in her mind. They both released this breath at the same time and the body went back to doing its own thing. 

“Dr. Hunter was taken, I assume?”

“No. He can still run his business, he was just put under house arrest. There will be guards everywhere, if you were thinking about dropping by and trying to steal medicine or anything else from there.” Morro sighed and shook his head a bit. He appeared to know Nya pretty well in this dream world, Nya thought to herself.

Nya felt herself pale slightly at her own form’s next action. She walked over and picked up a straw hat that was identical to that of Wu’s. She felt herself look at it sadly before putting it on. She then put on a black cloak, peering over her shoulder at the three rebels standing a little ways away behind her. 

“Who said that I was going to steal it?” Nya asked with a slightly sly smile. She could tell that her body was forcing it. “I should return shortly. Please, keep everyone at ease while I’m away. I have work to do.”

With those words, the world around her faded to black and Nya woke up from her dream.


	3. Please Wake Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit hits the fan, and Kai shares an Underworldly experience.

The next morning had arrived. Nya looked at a clock nearby and noticed that it was only one minute until Wu would come in, banging his gong to wake her and the other ninja up for sunrise exercise. She sat up and held her head in her hand, not believing the weird dream she just had. It was absolutely insane!

Before Nya could further try to analyze her dream, Wu came in. She sighed and got up as she heard the loud banging, realizing that she didn’t have any time to try to think about it right now. She could try to think about it later.

Nya met her brother and other teammates in the hall, making their way towards the training area. She noticed Lloyd out of the corner of her eye. Her big brother did as well. 

Kai looked to Lloyd and noticed how tired he looked. When he opened his mouth to ask why this was, he couldn’t find his voice. He stopped in his tracks and grabbed the two nearest people by their shoulders, which happened to be Cole and Jay, and made them look at the green ninja. 

The other two ninja froze as well. Their friends eyes, instead of the vibrant green he normally had, had gone blood red. But the scariest part was, there was no emotion on his face. Nothing at all. 

Nya had grabbed onto Zane and made him look over as well, making the entire crew of ninja stop in their tracks and just stare at their friend and leader for a few seconds. 

That was before things went crazy.

Lloyd’s eyes snapped back to life and on a hunch, Kai grabbed onto him and slammed his head against the wall roughly, effectively causing the young man to black out. Something about Lloyd’s now red eyes unnerved him to the point of just doing this. He didn’t want to take any risks. Despite being shocked, Zane quickly took the young man from Kai and hurried off to put him in bed, feeling his forehead start to heat up. He was getting a little pale, and the ice ninja felt as though Lloyd was getting sick. But something told him that he wasn’t just getting sick. There was more to this, but he didn’t have time to think about that.

Cole quickly ran to catch up with their Sensei and tell him what had just happened, knowing for a fact that this was something that he had to know about. His nephew’s eyes just randomly changed color! For no apparent reason! Jay went after him, not wanting to be left alone or leave anyone else alone for some odd reason.

Kai and Nya looked at each other, both of them having grim faces. Each for a different reason. Nya felt as though something bad would have happened if Kai hadn’t reacted as quickly as he had. Kai was starting to remember a weird nightmare he had had a couple of months ago. And for some odd reason, he felt as though that nightmare and this instance were connected somehow.

The nightmare then started to replay in Kai’s mind.

Kai looked around, not quite recognizing his surroundings. They were dark. There was some fire on some torches every here and there on the walls, illuminating only small spots of the place around him. He looked down, realizing that he was sitting down on some sort of throne! His eyes widened in shock as he saw how he was dressed as well. This wasn’t his gi! Or anything he owned for that matter!

Kai heard the shaky rattling of bones and looked forward, feeling himself lose control over his own body. He didn’t have the chance to freak out or try to regain control, the skulkin shakily approaching him before bowing. 

“Em, Emperor Kai...” The skulkin began, his voice shaking just as much as his bones were. Kai widened his eyes yet again. Emperor?! While he kind of liked the sound of that, something in the pit of his stomach made him feel a bit more unnerved. Kai recognized the skeleton to be Frackjaw, someone he faced back when he was training to be a ninja. Could it be that he was in the underworld, the skulkins’ home? “We have a v-visitor...”

“I thought I told you to not let anyone in!” Kai’s own voice had a venomous edge to it. He then could feel his eyes widen. The last time he could remember using this sort of tone was when he was corrupted by Chen’s staff. 

The skulkin winced and shrunk back, nodding his head, er- skull, vigorously. “Y-you did!” He yelped out. “It-It’s just....”

“Spit it out, you knucklehead!” 

“It’s your sister! She wants to speak with you!” Frackjaw finally spat out what he was trying to say before stepping back in fear. “I-I mean, she wants an audience with you, sire!” 

There was a heavy, aggravated sigh. 

“Bring her in.”

Kai covered his mouth, not believing this. His sister was coming to speak with him? Well, he hoped that this conversation would give him some more information! This was really starting to weird him out.

The fire ninja watched as his sister walked in, his own eyes widening slightly. This dream must be taking place in the past, she’s wearing her old dress! The one she wore before the final battle... he swallowed heavily, seeing her trembling. He was getting a really bad feeling from this now...

“Kai!” Nya looked up at her big brother with a look of hope, her bob-cut hair style being the same as she had right now. At least something felt familiar here.

“I don’t care that you’re my sister, it’s EMPEROR Kai. And you better watch your tone with me.” Kai stood up from his throne, causing Kai to try to snap at himself. “She’s your sister, don’t talk to her like that!” He snapped, but he didn’t seem to hear himself.

Nya winced and shrunk back slightly, nodding her head. “O-okay, Okay.... calm down.” She took a deep breath. “I came here because I wanted to talk to you... I heard what Garmadon did to you and the others... I wanted to come down here to bring you back, to help you! Kai, this isn’t you! This isn’t the overprotective big brother that I love! Please, snap out of it and listen to me!” Her weak voice got stronger and stronger with every word she stated, regaining her confidence as she stepped forward and looked up at him. Kai felt his heart shatter. She sounded so hurt, so desperate...

Kai silently started to walk towards his sister, his expression not revealing anything for once. Nya’s look of confidence faltered slightly as he came forward, but she put it back on and stood tall, looking him in the eye. She looked hopeful for a few seconds as Kai reached his hand out to her, only to scream in pain as Kai’s hand lit up and started to burn her left eye.

“You shouldn’t have come here. This is my domain, my kingdom now! Your words mean nothing to me, you aren’t trying to help me!” Kai snarled this angrily, his eyes alight with fury. When he was done, he pulled his flaming hand back and left his now sobbing sister on the ground. “Get. OUT.” He snarled, some skulkins quickly coming in to assist the girl with getting out before their emperor decided to hurt her even more.

The real Kai got taken out of this body and stood there for a few seconds, his mouth wide open as he stared at this horrific version of himself. He slowly backed up, hoping and praying to anyone listening that this was only a dream, and that he would be able to wake up quickly.

With that, Kai got snapped out of his thoughts as Zane rushed to bring everyone into the same room.


	4. Old Allies, New Foes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay is sent out to retrieve some tea that may lower Lloyd’s fever. He encounters some old friends after an experience with a potential new foe.

Zane had gathered everyone into one room, Kai and Nya being the last to arrive. They seemed to be on edge as they came in and sat down, but everyone was too enveloped in their own world to notice. Cole was leaning against the wall, Jay was sitting down in a chair, and Zane was standing beside where Lloyd was laying down.

“It seems as though Lloyd has a fever. And a very large one at that. With his elemental abilities, this would not have been a problem, but something else seems to be ailing him,” Zane began. “If nothing else had been ailing him this would not have happened.”

“Can we get that in English?” Jay sighed, trying to make sure that he understood what had just been said. He had a vague understanding, but wanted to make sure.

“Lloyd can have a really high body temperature, like me. So this isn’t really that bad normally. But if he’s fighting something else right now, well.... this high temperature might mean something more.” Kai explained, making Jay slowly nod his head. This didn’t sound good. Not at all...

“There should be a tea that could help Lloyd. Sensei Wu occasionally goes to a certain shop, and I have a feeling it will carry this tea. Perhaps if you go and explain the situation, you could get some.” Zane turned and addressed Jay one on one for this, going to give the others some things to do as well. 

“Sure thing! Tell me where it is and I’ll go take care of it.” Jay smiled a bit and nodded his head, standing up now. He would go and be a help to the team and get out of doing sunrise exercises?! Sounds like a plan to me! The lightning ninja thought this to himself as Zane relayed the address to him.

“Remember; we need a tea that can reduce his temperature naturally.” Zane reminded him of this. “Get some money and then go. We need to get it as soon as possible.”

“You can count on me, Zane!” Jay did a mock salute with a wry smile, knowing that he had to be fast. For his friend. It was a good thing he was the lightning ninja! Speed was his middle name! 

Jay, as soon as he had gotten some money, was off to where the store was said to be. He was moving along at a pretty fast pace, but thankfully, it was not too far away. He wasn’t worried about getting there and back with good time. But, he was running along pretty quickly anyway. Not only that, but he was also deep in his own thoughts. This lead him to be completely unaware of his surroundings.

Only a few seconds after that, Jay ran into someone and his head collided with theirs. Before he had the chance to react and recoil, black spots invaded his vision and he landed on his back, his subconscious unable to fight off what it had been fighting off all week.

The lightning ninja blacked out.

Jay woke up with a start, the last thing on his mind being the collision that he had just went through. He let out a soft sigh of relief before he noticed that this was no where near where he was last. He felt his heart skip a beat and attempted to remain calm while trying to look around his surroundings. But the second he tried to turn his head, he realized that he was somehow stuck. The lightning ninja tried to use his surroundings, or what he could see of them, to get a clue of where he was. 

The room around him was surprisingly dark. And his eyes weren’t adjusting as fast as they usually did. He took this as a bad sign and squinted, trying to make out anything he possibly could. He could barely make out the dim glow of light coming from all around him, causing shivers to go up and down his spine. 

Before he had the chance to look around his surroundings further, a female, robotic voice came on. He jumped slightly at the sound, not having been expecting it at all.

“Charging complete. Prepare for release.”

Charging...? What was charging, what was going on? The mysteries of this place were starting to really bother Jay. But he didn’t have another chance to think about it. Just then, whatever had been keeping down made a noise and released him. The lightning ninja was up in the blink of an eye, but even that was a little slow for him. He felt... heavier. There was something weighing him down... He felt it in his chest and on his arms... Speaking of his arms, he finally looked down and felt his eyes widen. He had robotic arms and hands! He let out an audible yell and stumbled back a bit, not believing his eyes. What’s going on here?! 

When Jay had backed away, he had also turned around. When he did this, he managed to see what had been keeping him down. He paled slightly. It looked like a chair, but there were multiple wires and tubes coming in and out and across it! The chair seemed to be made of metal, and it reflected his appearance to him. 

Jay paled even more, of that was possible. His eyes... they were purple. That wasn’t natural. Not only that, but the part of his eye that was supposed to be black was an unnatural electric blue. His chest seemed to be made of metal as well, the rest of his body looking to be more metal than man. He swallowed heavily, realizing just what he was.

Jay was a cyborg.

He slowly approached the chair-like object again, looking it over. From what he could gather, it look like a recharging station. It was probably what he used to regain power and or energy. He felt a little sick at the thought of that.

Jay finally snapped himself out of his thoughts, deciding that he wanted to take a better look at his surroundings. He pulled himself away from the chair/charging station and started to walk around the room, searching for a door or something that would allow him to leave. He tried to find a wall or a light or something that would give him some way to see and find an exit. But the only thing he got was a pounding headache and a completely random thought.

Patience. Answers will come with time.

This random thought hit Jay pretty hard. He stopped what he was doing and dropped his jaw. For some odd reason, he felt as though that thought was not his own. He tried to think about this rationally, telling himself that he was freaking out over nothing. But the more he thought about it, the more his head hurt and the more prominent that thought became in his mind. It got to the point that Jay fell to his knees with a loud, metallic clang. The pain of this new, splitting headache and the sheer volume of his mind screaming at him was enough to get him on his knees like this.

All answers will be revealed in time. Now, wake up. 

Jay shot up into a sitting position as he woke up from his insane nightmare, nearly colliding heads with a very familiar person. Yet again...

“Woah, mornin’, Jay. That must have been a pretty hard hit, you were just out like a light with one blow!” Jay looked up at the slightly older man and sighed. 

“Nice to see you too, Ronin. Could you help me up? My head is pounding!” He grit his teeth a bit and held his hurting head in his hand, Ronin agreeing and helping Jay to his feet with his free hand. 

“You didn’t even hit me that hard, but you were out cold for a while. You okay?” Ronin sounded not necessarily concerned, but very curious as to why one of the ninja was down and out with one minor collision like that. Something was telling him that there was more to this than he knew about...

“Not really... I was sent out to get some tea for Lloyd. He’s kinda sick right now. Wait, what time is it? How long was I out for?!” 

“Good to see you’re feeling okay enough to still be a blabbermouth...” Ronin rolled his eyes slightly as he checked his watch. “Yeah, you were out for a solid ten minutes-“

“TEN MINUTES?!” Jay screeched, looking mortified. “Zane’s gonna kill me! I gotta go!” 

“Now hold on, lightning mouth. You clearly don’t feel good. At least let me come along, you obviously shouldn’t be left alone. You just might bump into someone you don’t know next time.” Jay opened his mouth to protest. “And I am not debating this with you. Let’s go.” He shut his mouth again and sighed, motioning for the former, at least he hoped he was a former, thief to follow him.

“So. Greenie’s sick?” Ronin tried to make conversation, walking along briskly with Jay.

“Yeah, well, that’s what Zane said. He’s got a high temperature. But he also said that this wasn’t natural for him, and that there was probably more to this...” Jay sighed and shook his head a bit. “This is starting to make my head hurt...”

“What do you mean, there’s probably more to this? Do you think there’s some malevolent force out there trying to take over Ninjago by giving Lloyd a really bad cold?”

Jay couldn’t help but let out a small snicker at the joke. “Yeah, no. I don’t think it’s a cold. Like I said, he had a really high temperature. And earlier, right when we got out of bed, his eyes turned red for a few seconds. And he lost all emotion in his eyes. It was creepy...”

Ronin came to a stop for a few seconds, his eyes widening. He shook his head violently and turned to Jay. “On second thought, I think you’re right...”

“What do you mean by that? For all we know, you’re right.” Jay looked to Ronin, feeling a tad bit confused by his sudden actions. 

“I just remembered something. It’s... what am I thinking? This is ridiculous. Never mind, forget I said anything.”

Jay looked to Ronin, but didn’t say anything else. He was clearly lost inside his own thoughts. Or in this case, he was lost in his own dream...

Ronin looked down at the hat he was holding in his hands. It looked the same as the one he always wore, but something felt a little... different. Off. Unnatural... 

The thief put the hat back on his head and took a moment to look around where he was, trying to figure out where exactly he was st the moment. He’s been almost everywhere in Ninjago, he should remember where he is right now! But to his confusion, this place didn’t seem familiar. At all. As if it was an entirely new place created by his mind alone... 

“What’s the pass code?” A sudden voice broke through Ronin’s thoughts. Before he had the chance to turn around and analyze the situation before acting, his body took a mind of its very own and acted.

“Water isn’t wet, just like fire doesn’t burn.” Ronin furrowed his eyebrows. What in Ninjago was that supposed to mean? And just who was this person in front of him? 

The person had a black cloak that was moving around in the slight breeze, which left him unable to decipher what sort of body type this person had and if he might know them. They also had a straw hat rather similar to his own, but it felt familiar as well. Like he had seen someone else wear that exact same hat at some point before then... Just then, the figure moved the hat back, revealing an older version of Nya. Ronin was stunned to silence. He could tell that it was her since he was so close to her, in the physical sense right now and the emotional due to just a few months ago, but if he had been even a few feet away, he wouldn’t have recognized her at all.

The girl had much longer hair. So long, it was tied up in a ponytail. She also had a beauty mark on the side of her face, and she had bandages over her left eye... Said girl gave Ronin a wry smile before beginning to speak. 

“Glad you could finally make it, Ronin. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around here.”

“Cut to the chase, Nya. I know what you came here to do.” Ronin sighed a bit and shook his head. His tone was deeply serious, and somewhat fatherly. “I heard about the doctor. You want me to try to get you some medicine without the nightmares finding out that you sent me.”

“Exactly. Even with this new look, I have a feeling that if you recognize me after knowing me for two months, they will recognize me since they have known me for a few years.” 

“Nya, I’m risking my neck out there for you almost every day! I don’t go in that hidden bunker and instead do all of these favors, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Ronin.” Nya’s newly stern tone made Ronin raise an eyebrow. She’s gone through some things. He can tell by her voice. “We are all risking our necks doing this. I could have been killed had a guard seen and recognized me coming here. They haven’t figured you out yet, but they have figured me out. We ask you to do all of this because we can’t do this on our own, and you know as well as I do that we both want the same thing in the end. We both want Ninjago back. And we can’t get Ninjago back-“

“And we can’t get Ninjago back unless we take a few risks. I know.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair before looking back up at the girl. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m not the leader of the rebellion for nothing.” She leaned in a bit before muttering this, patting his shoulder. “Good man. You know what to do from here. Make sure you aren’t followed, we don’t need you falling into their hands. And be extra careful today.” Her voice became cold. “Coltrane has been spotted in these parts. Don’t cross him again.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. I still have scars from the last time I met him unprepared.” Ronin gave dry chuckle before nodding to the leader of the rebellion. He would get her that medicine and get it to her safely. He had to. Not just for her sake, but for Ninjago’s sake. He turned on his heel and started to walk away, leaving Ronin with more questions than answers. 

“Ronin? Ronin, hello...” Jay was waving his hand in front of Ronin’s face, trying to get him to snap out of it and look at him. “You’re acting kinda weird yourself. You feeling okay?” 

It was Ronin’s turn to be snapped out of his own thoughts, causing him to shake his head a bit. “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s just get that tea for your friend and then go our seperate ways again.”

Jay looked a little unsure, but nodded his head and opened the door to the store. It had taken much longer than he had anticipated, but they had finally arrived at the tea shop. The older lady at the counter looked up when she heard the bell ring, seeing the two men walk in. 

“What do you want?” She asked in a slightly gruff tone, not in the mood for visitors. Then again, she was never in the mood for visitors.

“Long story short, I need a tea that can reduce a fever. My friend has a pretty bad one right now.” Jay walked up to the counter and put the money on it, looking the lady in the eye. “It’s kind of important.”

The woman seemed to tense for a few seconds. Fever. Fever was a normal thing, right? Nothing to be concerned about. She settled back into her normal, bitter cover before she realized who this was. Her eyes widened and her tone softened. “You...” Her voice became worried before she cleared her throat. Right. Fever. “Does this fever have anything else that came with it?”

Jay and Ronin sent each other a look. This was weird... “Well, uh, yeah! My friend... his eyes kinda-sorta-maybe turned red-“

“What friend is this? What’s his name?!” They had her attention now. The act was dropped. She had to care about this mess. She couldn’t afford not to care. Things were lining up all too well in her mind.

One of the ninja. 

With his eyes being different.

She had to make sure this was not what she thought it was. 

If she potentially had answers she had to know the question, first.

Mystake was leaning forward over the counter, to the point of nearly touching Jay. He backed off a bit at this realization. A bit uncomfortable.

“Lloyd, Lloyd Garmadon-“

Mystake let out a loud gasp. Icy exterior entirely melted away by worry.

She was right.

“Oh no... that wasn’t a dream...” She muttered under her breath. The two others in the room, who had also had peculiar dreams recently, sent each other a wide-eyed look. 

“Now just what do you think you’re talking about, lady?” Ronin snapped, turning to the older woman. He wanted answers.

“There’s no time to explain!” She snapped. “Your friend needs a lot more than a tea to bring down a fever!” Mystake quickly said this, hurrying as fast as she could to get the requested tea before coming out from behind the counter. “You must take me to him. I can explain when we get there! There is more to this than you could ever imagine!”

Jay didn’t look so sure, but the words from his dream hit him again. Answers will come in time... Perhaps that wasn’t just a dream...

“Then what are we waiting for? Follow me.”


	5. Serpentine, yet Robotic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole and Zane, while stuck at the Bounty, share their experiences while waiting for Jay to return.

Cole looked to Zane with an annoyed glance, as if asking him silently where the blue ninja was at the moment. The nindroid gave a small shrug, having no idea. His expression was worried, but Cole didn’t notice this due to his own frustration. 

The earth ninja gave a small yawn, feeling extremely tired after having to get up for sunrise exercise, and then not doing any of it. He was grateful, but still very sleepy. With a small glance to Zane, he decided that he would simply doze off as he waited for Jay to come back with the tea. That sounded like a sound plan, and the others could wake him up if something happened before then. With this sound plan in mind, he settled down in his chair, shut his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

Darkness. Why was it so dark? Cole couldn’t remember a time when he was in pitch black darkness like this without a light. Something about it was unnerving to him. The teen squinted his eyes and slowly looked around, trying to see through the intense darkness that surrounded him.

But he couldn’t. 

Cole shakily stood up, feeling weak all of a sudden. He stood still and waited for this to go away before trying to move forward, trying to do so so that he could look around this place and find out just what was going on. But he was stopped with a soft metallic noise. He stopped and slowly moved his arms forward, the same thing happening yet again. 

Cole craned his neck and strained his eyes, trying to see what was going on, but to no avail. He finally used one hand to reach over to the other and felt around, soon finding what was holding him back.

Cole was chained to the wall with vengestone chains.

That explains why he felt so weak and shaky... Cole grit his teeth angrily and kept pulling on the chains, trying to get them off and trying to get out and away. This resulted in the loud rattling of chains and loud grunts of straining from him, but it was to no avail. 

After a few minutes of relentless pulling and straining himself, Cole fell to his knees. It was pointless. With his already weak state, he would never be able to make it out of these chains. He gave one last tug, but nothing happened. 

Not to the chains, anyway.

After Cole had given that last tug, his head shot up at the sound of a door being unlocked. He must be in some sort of locked room, if that was connected to wherever he is... Light came into the room all of a sudden, and Cole had to look away to not be blinded. When he finally was able to look back, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Stone warriors came towards him and one held what seemed to be the keys. Cole prepared himself to be able to run as soon as he was freed from the chains, but he got grabbed roughly by two of them for him to be held still. He cursed to himself. He had forgotten how strong these guys were.

Cole started to thrash around hopefully, nonetheless, trying to find a way to break away and get down the hallway to freedom. But it was to no avail. He was dragged down the hall instead, his shouts and pleads for anyone who could hear to help him only bouncing off of the walls. His own words seemed to be mocking him as they bounced back. 

The stone warriors finally released him at one point, but it was only in a dark room with only a little bit more light than that of his former prison. He growled in a bit of frustration. What, did they go through all that trouble just to shove him into a new prison? There had to be more to this... And after a few seconds, he realized that he was right. 

A new guard came in, one with four arms. If he remembered correctly, the guy’s name was Kozu. Yeah, Kozu. That sounded about right.

Cole slowly backed up, seeing that Kozu was holding something in his hand. He tried to reach out to find something to at least stall him, only to find and feel the hard, cold wall against his back. 

“Stay back.” He said, making himself sound a lot braver than he felt right now. Cole felt this façade fade as Kozu laughed.

“Stay still.” Was all the stone warrior said back after his laugh. He grabbed Cole’s arm tightly and pulled it towards his body. Cole tried to pull back, feeling his heart start to race and his breathing quicken slightly. Kozu didn’t seem too bother by this and revealed something. With the darkness of the room he couldn’t seem to grasp what it was until he felt a sharp prick and a burning sensation as a liquid was sent into his veins. Cole pulled his arm back sharply, but it was already done. Kozu turned on his heel, walking out as Cole grabbed onto where he had been pricked, the burning sensation only getting worse with each passing second.

“What did you do to me?!” Cole gasped in between pangs of pain, falling to his knees. He didn’t need to look to know that Kozu hadn’t turned around and was leaving the room. Once he knew that he was entirely gone, he let out a grunt of pain and tightened his grasp on his arm. The pain was overwhelming, and the sensation was spreading to the rest of his skin. It felt like it was on fire, and all other physical feelings seemed to be blocked out. 

The pain was so much that colored spots began to dance on his vision and Cole had to fight to stay awake. He fought as hard as possible, not wanting to give in. He’s stronger than this! He can do it! But he soon found himself passing out, slowly giving in to the pain. As the pain overwhelmed him, he left his body, now getting a good look at what, or who, he had been inside. His eyes widened before they finally dropped, watching as his body slowly turned into a snake-like creature before it all turned to black.

“Cole, Cole! Wake up!” Cole woke up to the gentle shaking of his shoulder, looking up to see Zane with a worried look on his face. “You were shaking violently in your sleep, what was going on?”

“Nothing, Zane, just a really crazy dream.” He sighed and rubbed his head, trying to push the inane dream out of his head. “The stone warriors were there, and I was turning into some weird snake person...”

Zane’s expression turned from worried to shocked in a matter of moments.

“I... I know that as a nindroid, I can not dream. And I thought that with this new titanium form I wouldn’t even be able to have those visions like I once did. But I was dreadfully wrong. I had a peculiar... well, I suppose dream is the best way to describe it, just the other night.”

Zane took a deep breath, glancing over his shoulder to look at Lloyd. He was still out, and he seemed to be sweating a bit. He sighed and sat down. 

“The other night, in my dream, I woke up in what looked like a white padded room. The sort you would see in a mental asylum. The very next thing I noticed was that I couldn’t feel my body, I could not control my body. It was like I was being forced to watch as someone else controlled me. In the dream, I eventually got up and heard my own voice. But... it did not sound like my own voice. It was heavily glitched and it was much colder. Unnaturally so. I have reason to believe that my wires there were damaged badly.”

Zane sighed deeply before continuing.

“The dream was nothing more than that, but at one point, I came to some glass. I was able to look at myself as if it was a mirror. Cole, my eyes... they gleamed with insanity. My arms were wrapped around my body within a straight jacket. That... that was not a dream Cole.”

Cole had a very concerned expression on his face before he looked up. He had a crazy idea. But with these crazy dreams who knew? Maybe it would make sense.

“Zane... could... is it possible that our nightmares are related?”

Zane’s eyes widened as well, but before he had the chance to reply, the door opened.


	6. New Revelations...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mystake, in all of her questionable wisdom and knowledge, explains what is going on to the ninja.

Kai and Nya were brought into the same room as Zane, Cole, Jay, Lloyd, and now the oddly familiar old lady. There was no speaking as everyone got settled, but the atmosphere was clearly tense. Nobody wanted to be the one to speak first. Not even talkative Jay was speaking up or even cracking a bad pun or joke!

After a few moments of this tense silence, Kai spoke. He couldn’t take it any more.

“So... why are we all here again? I have a feeling that we didn’t need to all be here if we just needed to give Lloyd some tea.” 

“And you’re right.” Mystake nodded her head with a grave tone in her voice. At this, everyone turned to her. Except Cole. He turned to look at Jay with a raised eyebrow. He just mouthed for him to listen. At that, they both turned to her.

“A tea to reduce his fever may do him a bit of good, but it won’t help him with the nightmare running through his head.”

“Nightmare?” Zane sounded shocked. Everyone else in the room- except for the fitfully sleeping green ninja- felt their eyes widen. “What exactly do you mean by nightmare?” He could tell that there was more to this.

“If you would let me explain, I’ll tell you what I mean.” Mystake snapped back sassily. She sighed afterwards and calmed herself. “This nightmare isn’t just a bad dream. Oh no, it’s not that simple. This nightmare is the result of a rift in the realms, a rift that was created for an unknown reason.

This rift allowed the spirits of-“

“Spirits? We got rid of them! Nya killed them all in a huge wave!” Jay sounded incredulous, not believing this.

“If you’ll let me speak without interrupting me what I’m saying will make more sense!” Mystake snapped again, making the blue ninja gulp and nod.

“Yes ma’am...”

“Anyway,” She huffed angrily, “these spirits are not necessarily ghosts. They are entities from the forgotten realm, the abandoned realm... the realm that was a Nightmare like version of Ninjago. Nightmare Ninjago. These entities were able to grab onto their original versions, which happen to be you ninja.”

No one dared to interrupt her this time, but everyone in the room had wide eyes. Whether it be from shock, disbelief, or both depended on the ninja.

“I... Had a weird dream last night. Is it possible that... that...” Nya, usually being good with her words, didn’t know how to formulate this peculiar sentence. 

“I had a really weird nightmare some time ago, too.” Kai spoke up, looking at Nya with wide eyes. 

“I got knocked out and had a crazy dream!” Jay added on, the three now looking at each other.

“There was a peculiar moment in one of my dreams while I was shut down some time ago...” Zane drifted off.

“I had a nightmare while we were waiting for you to come back, Jay!” Cole added on, now standing up. 

Mystake’s already grave expression became even more so. “The only reason why I know all of this is because I had a dream... more like a vision, the other night. I was able to witness the birth of that realm... Nightmare really is the best way to describe that horrifying place...” She drifted off once more as the room fell into another tense silence.

“My dream... was not really a nightmare.” Nya broke the silence. “It was just... weird. In my dream, my hair was longer. And I had a beauty mark. But the weirdest thing, at least for me, was the fact that my left eye was covered in bandages.”

Kai paled as his sister described this and slowly turned to her. But she was not done.

“When I was looking at myself in the mirror, someone knocked at the door. It was a girl... She had white hair, and golden yellow eyes. She seemed to be kinda young, younger than most of us. She led me outside, telling me that they needed me. But,” She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t control myself. My body was moving on its own. What I gathered from that dream was I was a part of some rebellion... but against who or what I didn’t understand.”

“Sis... I think whatever or whoever is coming after me did that to whoever is coming after you.” Kai spoke up when Nya finished, causing the attention to shift from the water ninja to the fire ninja. “In my nightmare... and it really was a nightmare, trust me, I was in the underworld. But I didn’t look or feel like myself. It was... unnatural. Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. But at one point you came into the room. But you were dressed like you were before the final battle. You seemed so scared... and I couldn't do anything about it because I lost control of my own body.”

There were a few quiet whistles in the room, from Cole and Jay, as the others took this in.

“You were... you were trying to get me to snap out of it. Trying to get me to listen to reason. But when I came down to you...” Kai seemed to falter before continuing what he was saying. “I burned your eye.”

Nya put her hands to her mouth, some pieces of her puzzle clicking together in her mind.

“And in your dream, you thought you were a part of a rebellion, right?” Kai turned to his little sister and raised an eyebrow, trying to calm down. “In my nightmare, the version of you said something like ‘I heard what Garmadon did to you and the others’... and with what happened to me, I think that it’s safe to see that you were rebelling against Garmadon!”

“Hold on, hold on.” Cole stepped in as well, remembering a specific detail from his nightmare. “In my nightmare, there were stone warriors... could that be any indication that... that Garmadon won the final battle in that realm?”

“I suppose it is certainly possible.” Zane nodded his head slowly. “I have little recollection of my nightmare as of now, but I do remember myself being rather... unstable. Insane, even.”

“And I was some weird cyborg person! But... I feel like... some of these nightmares aren’t actually trying to hurt us. Now that I think about it, there was a voice, telling me that everything would be revealed in time... Is it possible that Nya’s and my own spirit, ghost, nightmare, whatever, were trying to warn or help us?”

“It is very possible.” Mystake nodded, going to brew the tea to reduce Lloyd’s fever. Everyone had forgotten that she was there and jumped slightly at the sound of her voice. “Not everything is what it seems. That’s how it is in every version of Ninjago.” Before the ninja could question her about her new statements, she disappeared out of the room.

No one bothered to go after her and simply went back to talking, no one in the room watching Lloyd at the moment. Which means no one noticed when his eyes opened, them still being a deep blood red.


	7. ... A Bit More Information...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mystake provides some more advice before taking her leave.

Nya, in the midst of talking with the others, glanced over to Lloyd and nearly did a double take.

Lloyd.

Lloyd was awake.

He wasn’t supposed to be awake. Not now, he was still supposed to be asleep! She reached out to grab someone and bring this to their attention, but Lloyd drowsily shut his eyes again. The red eyes didn’t even seem to affect him at the moment... She slowly and carefully put her arm back down, Jay noticing this out of the corner of his eyes. He didn’t say anything about it, though. He had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to say anything at the moment.

The others continued to chat and tell the full story of their dreams to each other, not leaving out a single detail for fear of leaving out something that might be of use to them later on, when Mystake came back in. She had a pot full off the tea and a cup. Behind her was Sensei Wu, holding a dampened cloth to lay on his nephew’s forehead. 

“Has anything of interest happened while Mystake and I were out?” Wu asked, the others immediately stopping their chatter.

“Nope! Nothing at all.” Jay chirped enthusiastically, only for Nya to sigh.

“Actually, I noticed that Lloyd opened his eyes only a few seconds ago, but he closed them again and I guess he went back to sleep right after.”

“And what of his eyes?” Wu seemed to have been filled in by Mystake while they were making the tea. 

Nya sighed softly. She’s not surprised that that was his question. “They were still really red. But it didn’t seem to really affect the way he was acting much this time.” 

Wu let out a deep sigh and nodded, stroking his beard as Mystake rested the cloth on Lloyd’s head and got the cup of tea. She gently made him sit up slightly and gave him the tea, only giving him a little bit at a time, however. 

The others remained silent as they watched the elderly woman help their friend, leader, and youngest member of the team drink the tea. It was odd enough for the chosen one to be bed ridden like this, but the reason behind this was even more odd and peculiar.

Once she was done, Mystake placed the tea on the ground with the cup nearby. “If his fever gets up high again, warm this up and give him another cup of tea.” She seemed to be a bit more calm after giving him it. “And if he gets restless, give him a half cup. It’ll help him stay asleep.” 

Before the others could question why they wanted him to stay asleep, Mystake looked up and met all of their eyes at one point or another. 

“Until he finds a way to regain control of himself, he should stay this way to avoid his nightmare from taking control and doing irreversible damage.”

The others murmured or nodded in agreement, each glancing at someone else. Cole decided to be the one to speak up for the rest of them.

“What kind of irreversible damage are we talking about, here?”

Mystake pursed her lips in thought before sighing. “I... I’m not sure, myself. All I know is that the nightmare version of Lloyd is trying to take control of him, and if we were to let that happen, there can surely be no good to come from it.”

“She’s right.” Kai sighed softly. “We might as well make sure that that never happens. We don’t want to have to fight anyone if we don’t have to. Let’s keep this as contained as we can.”

Zane was the first to agree with this plan, followed by Nya. Cole slowly nodded his head and Jay was the last to agree. 

“Someone should watch over him at all times. You don’t need him getting up while everyone else is away.” Mystake imparted this last piece of advice before bidding farewell and good luck to the others. 

The rest of the day dragged by. Wu didn’t make the others do sunrise exercises, but did make most of them train while one stayed with Lloyd to keep an eye on him. He insisted that they continue to remain at their very best so that they could fight if the worst were to happen. 

No one knew what the worst would be in this situation, but everyone agreed that they would much rather not find out.

When the day ended, Wu made the executive decision to be the one to watch over Lloyd during the night. He would be able to fight him and warn the others if something were to happen. And he insisted that with the caffeine in his tea, he would remain awake the entire time.

The others were hesitant to agree, but eventually gave in. Wu was clearly not going to argue with them on this. No one felt up to arguing after the shocking events of that day anyway.

Nya was the last one to finally fall asleep, despite all of the ninja having struggled with this. She reasoned that the reason for their reluctance to fall asleep was a fusion of worry for their friend and for themselves. After all, Lloyd wasn’t the only one with a nightmare after him. Well, that’s what they gathered from what Mistake said, anyway. Some of what she said was a bit too cryptic.

One by one, the ninja drifted off, Nya being the last one to fall asleep. But once she fell asleep, she fell into a deep dream as well.


	8. And an Ally Acquired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay and Nya do not know the true stances of their alternate universe counterparts. But when yet another dream allows them to finally meet the faces behind the nightmares.

Nya felt herself jolt up, feeling that something was wrong. But instead of popping up from her bed in her home, or whatever she could call where she lived with the others, she found herself in a blank place... devoid of... well, many things. Mainly life.

She carefully got up from her spot and took a look around. There wasn’t much to see, since everything around her was the same. 

There seemed to be nothing around her. The place was dark, and from what little she could see, Nya could tell that she was on some sort of flat area. She kept looking around for a while before stiffening at the sound of something.

Footsteps.

Nya whirled around to face the direction in which the footsteps were coming from and got ready to fight, eyes narrowed angrily. This must be a dream. She didn’t know what was going on or if her nightmare even wanted to fight, but she did remember the warnings Mystake had given her and the other ninja.

When she finally was able to make out who or what was coming towards her, she didn’t feel all too surprised. It was the same person she had been in her last dream. 

Nya felt it safe to assume that she was her nightmare version.

“At ease, I’m not here to hurt you.” The girl said this calmly, clearly not wanting to fight. Her posture was too informal and she seemed far too relaxed.

“Then what are you here to do?” Nya raised an eyebrow, not relaxing even a bit. She was too suspicious with this entire set up. It was too well timed.

“I’m here to help you.” The girl remained calm and took a small step forward. “Nya, I said at ease. You can calm down. You saw what happened in my world, you know I’m a part of the rebellion.”

Nya started to calm down, relaxing only ever so slightly. She was ready to pounce at a second’s notice, however. “Alright... how can you help? Who are you rebelling against? What’s going on with Lloyd and the others?”

“One question at a time, please.” The other girl sighed and shook her head, running her fingers through her bangs. “We have some time. Sit down, we have much to discuss.” She sat down, encouraging Nya to slowly do the same. She still didn’t trust her entirely. 

Her nightmare didn’t blame her in the least, however.

“I guess that I should explain what happened to my world before we do anything else.”

“I think I already know the basics. Garmadon took over, and the others all had something happen to them. Kai was banished to the underworld, Cole was turned into some sort of snake person, Jay was a cyborg, and Zane went insane.” Nya counted the four of them off on her fingers. “What I don’t understand is what happened to Lloyd, and how did I, er, you escape?”

The other girl let out a dry laugh before shaking her head. “Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. They always were persistent... they must be getting good holds on the others if they remember those dreams...” 

That remark made Nya stiffen.

“You’re right. That’s what happened. To say it simply, we lost the final battle. The others and myself were captured, but I managed to escape. How or why, I... well, I can’t remember. That day is too fuzzy in my memory.”

“But what about Lloyd? What happened to him? His father loves him too much to have hurt him!” Nya leaned forward, much more interested in what her alternate universal self had to say. 

At this question, nightmare Nya laughed dryly again. There was a hint of both genuine laughter and anger in her voice. “Oh, Lloyd. Poor, poor, Lloyd. He became the prince of Ninjago. He got corrupted as well. No one knows how his father did it, what he was promised or told or whatever. All we know is how he acts now.”

When the girl paused, Nya presses on for information. 

“Well, how does he act?”

“We’ve nicknamed him the prince of brats back at the base. He’s a self centered, bratty, pathetic excuse for a villain usually.” She let out a genuine snicker at the thought. “He acts like a toddler at times. Then again, with the tomorrow’s tea incident, I don’t really blame him all that much.”

“We’re about the same age, though, right?” Nya raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, we are. We still age alongside you.” She nodded slowly, seeming to not know where she was going with this.

“Then you certainly got the short end of the stick there. Our Lloyd is a little too mature!” Nya shook her head at the thought, knowing he could be a wet blanket on the others’ fun at some times.

Her nightmare version snickered a bit in agreement at this. “Well, you’re not wrong! But, as our Lloyd has gotten older, he’s also gotten... angrier. He seems mad at almost everyone except his father. If someone even looks at him the wrong way, or what he deems to be the wrong way, he’ll try to kill them. He’s become a tyrant, and he’s only the prince. Imagine what will happen if he became king... thank goodness that didn’t happen.”

Nya soaked up all of this information before nodding her head slowly. Alright, she understands a bit more now. 

“Alright... good to know. Mystake already told us that your realm was abandoned and forgotten. She also said that you managed to cling onto us because there was a rift in the realms...? Can you explain a bit more...?”

Her alternative self hummed in thought. “If I’m going to be completely honest with you, I have no idea how it happened. All I remember is that we were well on our way to finding some way to defeat them when... it all just... disappeared.” She struggled to say this. “I can’t think of a single reasonable explanation for what happened. It’s almost like our world got deleted. The next thing I remember is finding you and the others. I was a bit late to the party, so I clung on and gave you your dream last night, hoping that it would prepare you for what would happen.”

“Nothing could prepare me for what happened today.” Nya sighed heavily. “But it definitely gave me some information that helped the ninja and me piece together some information about you all. And I’m grateful for that.”

Before the girl could nod her head and tell Nya she was welcome, she got interrupted with a question.

“But the main question I wanted to ask you was...” She took a deep breath. “How do we stop the other nightmares?”

“I... I... don’t know.” 

“What?! What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?!” Nya jumped up. “You just said you were close to finding a way to stop them!”

“We were close, but we lost all of it when our realm was... abandoned. I have no idea how to stop them, and worse yet, I don’t know how to keep them from possessing your friends and brother.”

Nya backed up a bit and put a hand to her head. “Is there anything we can do to at least slow them down...?” She asked slowly. 

“Lloyd’s fighting seems to be working pretty well.” The girl stood up as well, dead serious once more. “Unless you are willing to kill the ninja if the nightmares are successful, negotiate with them, stop fighting them off, or get away and warn the people as soon as you wake up, I have nothing else I can do to help you other than supply you with my memories so that you know what worked and what didn’t work.”

“Negotiating... what do you mean negotiate?” Nya got a little mad at this.

“It was just a suggestion, calm down.”

“What could we possibly do to negotiate with them?! From what I’ve seen and heard, they’re mercilessly versions of my friends who want to not only take over Ninjago, but turn it into a hellish version of it! They want to turn our world into a nightmarish reality!”

Nightmare Nya sighed heavily and put her hands up, shaking her head. “Alright, alright. Calm down. There are other things you can do. Look, the main thing I wanted to tell you is that I’m on your side, and I’m here to help. If you need anything, just calm down, and let me take over. I’ll still be here, giving you advice and helping when needed. Okay?”

Nya took a shaky deep breath before nodding. “Okay. Thank you, for everything.”

“You’re welcome, Nya. I can’t let what happened to my world and my loved ones happen to yours. Now, I need you to wake up.”

At those words, Nya found herself lose control and fall onto the ground of this weird place before waking up to footsteps not too far from her bed.


	9. Just a Few Bolts Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay gets to meet his own nightmare face to face for a chat.

Jay was very begrudging to fall asleep after the events of the day, but he was too tired at one point to keep his eyes open. He would have gone to get himself some coffee to stay awake, but he had a feeling the others would kill him for it long before his nightmare had the chance to even really come to light the same way Lloyd’s did.

So, sleeping was his only choice.

It didn’t take long for Jay to fall deep into a dream after falling fast asleep. He was quick to find himself sitting in a rather weird place. It was devoid of light and life, his eyes unable to see very far. It was very much like the peculiar dream he had had earlier that day, and that unnerved him. Thinking of said dream, an all too familiar voice rang out.

“Please remain calm. I do not have time to worry about your panic attacks.” 

Jay quickly got up and whirled around, narrowing his eyes. “You!” He spat, getting ready to fight him. “You must be the nightmare! My nightmare!” He recognized the cyborg version of himself from what he saw in the metallic reflection of the charging station in his nightmare. 

The cyborg was quick to put his hands up, trying to calm the lightning ninja, his original, down. “I am a nightmare. But I am not here to harm you.” Jay didn’t seem to look so sure, but Deadbolt wasn’t going to be the one to judge him for that. “If I had wanted to harm you, I would have done something by now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that one before.” Jay blew off his attempt at an explanation with a scoff. “If you wanna fool me, you’re gonna have to try harder!” 

“If I truly wanted to fool you, I wouldn’t have to try at all.” The nightmare snapped back. He was losing his patience with his original. How the other originals put up with the young man was far beyond his understanding. “As you should know by now, my former friends are attempting to take over your own friends. If you do not act quickly, they and Ninjago will fall into their clutches.”

Jay sighed heavily, but didn’t relax. “Yeah, we figured that out. The dreams we had were very helpful.” He sounded a bit sarcastic, but it was true. The dreams were the main reason why they were able to decipher a lot of what happened. Although, Mystake was the one to give them that specific nugget of information. 

“Believe it or not, I do not like what happened to my realm.” Deadbolt continued without acknowledging his original’s sarcasm. He didn’t have time for that. “And I certainly do not want what happened to my realm to repeat. I wish to help you.”

Jay made an expression of discomfort for a few seconds before shaking it off. “And how do I know that you aren’t just going to take over me and start hurting the others?” Jay raised an eyebrow. He didn’t like this. It was far too... too... well, he could not put his finger on what exactly was making him feel so off out about this whole scenario, but he still felt off!

Deadbolt let out a heavy sigh and shook his head slightly. He had to wrap this up, and quickly. He was running out of time. “Jay, listen to me. When you wake up, you need to go to Nya and ask her about her own dream. She will tell you many things, but there is one thing that is very important for you. 

“If you wish-“

“Please don’t use that word.”

Deadbolt looked at him for a second before nodding. “Ah, Yes. My bad. If you want me to be able to take control of you in case something were to happen and you need my help, you need to allow me to be in your head when you wake up. I understand your apprehension of allowing me to do this with what Lloyd is going through right now, but there is a difference between allowing me in your head and allowing me to take over.”

“But you do want to be able to take over. You just said that.” Jay pointed out, this not making him feel any better at the moment.

“As of now, I only want to be in your head to give you advice. If the worst were to happen, being in your head would give me enough time to take control and do whatever is needed.” Deadbolt explained himself before sighing. 

“There is no time left for me to speak with you. Please, when you get up, go to Nya. You need each other. Especially in this circumstance.” Deadbolt knew he was out of time. He had gotten in everything he wanted to say, he just hoped Jay understood all he had said.

“Now, wake up.”

Jay bolted awake with that last phrase echoing in his mind. He held his head for a few seconds as the dream quickly reassembled itself in the forefront of Jay’s mind. He was a little disoriented with everything that had been said echoing in his mind, yet, one phrase seemed to stick out more than the others. 

‘When you wake up, you need to go to Nya and ask her about her own dream.’

The boy couldn’t help but groan softly. She’s probably asleep by now, and he did not want to be the one to wake her up prematurely. But, something was urging him on to do and talk to her anyway.

Jay decided to take his chances and go to talk with her. The feeling he had was too strong to deny, as much as he didn’t like to say it.

The lightning ninja slowly and carefully made his way to her bed, trying to not make too much noise as to wake her or anyone else up, if they were even asleep in the first place, that is. 

He was surprised to see her eyes wide open and looking up at him. She slowly sat up and patted the spot beside her, motioning for him to sit down. He gladly did so as she began the conversation.

“Did you have any dreams?”

“Yeah, actually. I had one. Did you?”

“I did. And... well, to put it briefly, we have at least one nightmare as an ally.” Nya sighed and offered him a tiny smile, actually seeming to feel a bit hopeful about this whole situation now. Jay seemed a bit surprised at this before slowly nodding. 

“Well... I guess we might have two nightmares that are allies. My dream was of my own nightmare reaching out to me.” Jay started to explain his dream, Nya getting comfortable so she could pay close attention to Jay’s story. This seemed to be important. 

“I’m not sure if I should trust him or not. He was telling me that the other nightmares are trying to take over the guys. He wants to help because he doesn’t want what happened to his realm to happen to our own. He told me to check in with you, though. He told me to ask about your own dream...” He drifted off, not sure how to add anything more onto what he just said. That was essentially everything important he had been told, except for one minor thing. But left it out on purpose. He wanted to wait and see if what he thought was going to happen would happen...

Nya was quick to take in all of this information and nodded to him.

“Like I said, I did have a dream tonight. It was of my own nightmare approaching me and telling me the full story of what happened to her realm and what happened to all of the ninja there.

“Garmadon did win in that realm. But he caught you guys and punished you all in some way... Kai, he was sent to the underworld. His greed corrupted him and he took over. Cole was turned into some sort of snake person. Jay, you... you were killed... but someone brought you back to life with the use of robotics... And Zane... poor Zane, his wires were ripped out and put back in in disarray, making him go insane. But Lloyd... they don’t know what happened to him. All they know is that his father did something or said something to convince his son to come to his side and help him. He was made into the prince of Ninjago, and the new dark lord.” 

Jay soaked in all of this information. While it was certainly good to know, it didn’t confirm nor deny what he was thinking about earlier. “Is there anything else she talked to you about...?”

Nya thought for a few seconds before nodding her head. “I asked at one point how we could stop the nightmares from taking over our bodies and Ninjago. She didn’t seem to know the true answer to either one, but she did tell me to let her into my mind. That way, if something were to happen, she could either give me advice or take control to fight them off.”

Bingo.

‘That was all you needed to hear.’

Jay nodded his head in agreement with the familiar voice, despite still feeling a bit hesitant about this. “Thanks, Nya. That was all I needed to know. I think we should head back to bed, we need all the sleep we can get to be able to face whatever happens next.” The water ninja nodded her head as Jay stood up. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He whispered before smiling, heading back to bed to sleep the rest of the night away.


	10. A Nightlight Extinguished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai loses control and the others need to keep him down, just like they have Lloyd.

Morning came much too quickly for the ninja. Everyone seemed to have trouble sleeping one way or another. Nya and Jay had their dreams, which actually left their minds in such a whirl that they were unable to go back to sleep for a while. Zane, not needing sleep, decided after a while of attempting sleep that he would simply meditate until morning. Cole tossed and turned the entire night. Despite his occasional moments of blissful rest, he felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

Kai, however, was still fast asleep in his bed. No one had the heart to wake him up.

Zane went to work making some food for everyone while Cole helped the best he could. The others had decided it would be best to split up into pairs. Jay and Nya would go to check on Wu, while the other two remained there taking care of the food. 

The two ninja remained silent as they made their way to the room they had left Lloyd in. The thoughts of their dreams and the discussion they had last night was fresh on their minds. But as both got closer to the room, they both had a very bad feeling gnaw at them. Like something bad was about to or had already happened...

Jay was the first one to reach the room that their Sensei and leader was in and dropped his jaw. Nya was quick to follow, wanting to see what had left the blabbermouth in a shocked and speechless state. 

Sensei was leaning against the wall, his straw hat covering his eyes. There were no wounds on his body, but the same could not be said for Lloyd. There were bruises littered over different parts of his exposed skin, and his sleeping state seemed oddly peaceful. With what all had been happening, Nya thought that he had been knocked unconscious. There were some broken pieces of pottery littering the floor, the sharp edges leaving a hazard for the two ninja to make their way inside without needing a broom to clean up, first.

‘Looks like someone threw a fit last night.’

Jay slowly nodded his head in agreement with the voice, leading Nya to slowly look at him from the corners of her eyes. She shook her head slowly and sighed.

“Jay, if you’ll get the broom, I’ll call up Mystake and see if we can get any more of that tea. I have a feeling that Lloyd smashed the pot for a reason.” 

“On it.” Jay was off in a few seconds. He hated chores almost as much as he hated training, but he wasn’t about to complain about being left to sweep up the mess when they were stuck in such a serious situation. 

The two went their separate ways, Jay to get the broom and Nya to call the mysterious tea lady, when Nya passed the sleeping quarters. She noticed her brother out of the corner of her eye and stopped in her tracks. 

/Go back. Check on him. NOW.\

Nya was quick to listen to the familiar yet friendly voice she had in her head, peeking inside of the room to look at her older brother.

Kai was laying on his back, the peaceful look of sleep he had long gone. He was sweating profusely, tossing and turning ever so slightly. Had this happened before the day before then, Nya simply would have gone in and try to wake her brother up. But now, she has frozen up. She didn’t know what exactly she should do at the moment. 

So, she did what any reasonable younger sibling should do.

Nya ran out and went to get the others so she didn’t have to worry about fighting him on her own if something were to happen. She had a feeling she would be able to handle him, since she can handle her brother easily, but she didn’t know enough about the strengths of his nightmare to know how much more or less difficult he would be to fight.

Zane and Cole looked up from their conversation as Nya came in. Their tired yet playful demeanor dropped when they saw how serious the female ninja looked. 

“It’s Kai.” 

That was all she had to say to get the other two running along to the sleeping quarters. When they all peeked in again, Kai was in the same fitful state he had been left in.

“He seems to be in great amounts of distress. It is most likely he is either living through another nightmare as his nightmare, or he is fighting him off so violently that it is affecting his body. Hence the sweat and tossing.” Zane mused, watching the fire ninja carefully.

“I don’t know which it is, but we need to find a way to either help him win, get the nightmare to end, or restrain him.” Nya turned to the others with a slightly worried look. This was her brother they were talking about. She didn’t want to fight him and end up hurting him! 

“I say we just try to wake him up, first.” Cole shrugged a bit, offering a plan of action. “If we can wake him up, it was probably just a bad nightmare. If he doesn’t wake up, it’s probably more like he’s fighting off his nightmare.” 

Zane and Nya nodded their heads, seeing this to be a good first step. Nya didn’t even speak to them before she stepped into the room, going over to her brother’s side herself.

The water ninja pulled some water out of the warm air around Kai and created a thin film of it around her hand. She gently rested it on his forehead to try and cool him down. 

“Hey, Kai, it’s time to wake up. Come on, Zane made some breakfast...” Nya spoke gently, shaking Kai with her free hand. She would start out gentle, not wanting to just shake and shout at him to end up with him jolting awake and chasing her. She didn’t want this to end up as some misunderstanding because she was tired and paranoid. Which she was. 

When Kai didn’t wake up at that, Nya got a bit louder and a bit rougher. “Kai, Skylor’s here! Come on, you don’t want to miss her, do you?” She shook him a bit harder, but there was still no response from him. He didn’t even seem to notice she was there.

Nya finally gave it one last shot and stood up, pulling some more water from the air around them before dropping the ball of water on top of the fire ninja. 

Even then, he did not wake up.

Nya turned to the other ninja with a worried look, Cole and Zane now looking serious. “I’ll go and get Sensei Wu. You and Zane stay here in case he wakes up... not himself...” Cole nodded to the two of them before rushing out, making his way down the hall.

Cole went to the room where Sensei Wu was and found Jay with a broom and a trash bag. Wu was awake and talking to Jay in hushed tones. He, however, was able to pick up on some of their conversation.

“... woke up in the middle of the night and attacked me. His eyes were still red...”

“I’m not surprised. These nightmares, alternate reality versions of us, or whatever they are, are real ninja. They don’t quit...” Jay laughed dryly at his own little joke, despite not even liking it himself.

Cole cleared his throat to get their attention and jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing down the hall. “You two might want to come quick. We have a feeling that Kai might be the next one to go down.” The teacher and student glanced at each other for a few seconds before Wu looked over to Lloyd.

“I’m sure he’ll stay out. Come on, we don’t have any time for this!” Cole knew better than to push his Sensei around, but in a scenario like this where they aren’t quite sure of how to fight and defeat the enemy, they had to take some risks.

Including Cole being a bit pushy towards his Sensei.

Surprisingly, Wu didn’t seem perturbed at all by this and the three went back to the room to find a now awake and furious Kai. Zane was using his ice to keep him back, but Kai’s fire was rising high to try and melt it. Nya was quick to take the melted ice and use it to attack and try to knock him out of it, but it only seemed to make him madder.

Cole and Jay immediately joined in the fight, Wu keeping his distance to watch and observe the fire ninja while he was being possessed by the nightmare. 

His eyes seemed to be the most different thing about him. Instead of the normal, deep brown eyes that everyone was used to seeing, his eyes were red with black where the whites should be. His attitude seemed to change as well. Instead of the normally passionate boy, he was replaced by an angry time bomb ready to blow at a second’s notice.

From what he could see, the possession of the ninja would be quite different than the possession of Lloyd while Morro was... still around. These entities don’t seem to have much of a universal outside weakness like ghosts do. However, they still had their human qualities and would have weaknesses once they took over. 

Wu continued to think and theorize as Jay finally managed to land a large lightning bolt, the loud zap resulting in a collective wince as the nightmare possessed ninja passed out.

“Well... that’s two ninja down and out.” Cole sighed heavily as Kai was put in another room, seperate from the ninja and Lloyd. 

“I’m... going to go and call Mystake to ask for a lot more tea...” Nya spoke slowly before walking off. She seemed to be rather upset with her brother being the next to go down, but Jay grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Not yet. We have to tell the others about what’s going on.”

“What is going on? Is there something we do not yet know?” Zane looked between the two with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, actually.” Nya caught on to what Jay was talking about and turned to the others. 

“We both had dreams again last night. But, there’s good news and bad news.”

“Good news first, please.” Cole sighed heavily and motioned for the two of them to continue. They had been having a very weird two days, they needed some good news.

“The good news is both of our nightmares are here to help us.” Nya smiles a bit, being able to feel a bit of pride from her counterpart. It felt like she was standing right beside her...

/That’s right, we are! We’ll fight with you to the end!\

“That’s actually why I zapped Kai. My nightmare was getting pretty insistent that I shock him and just knock him out.” Jay laughed dryly, the aggravated voice still echoing a bit in his mind.

‘Can you blame me? You were not listening to me and that very easily could have been a life or death situation for the both of us.’ Deadbolt was quick to snap back. ‘If you die, I die. Not only that, but I will be forgotten, too. And none of us want that.’

“We’ve already lost two of our allies. It is good to know that we now have two more.” Wu nodded his head a bit, sighing as Nya went off to call Mystake.

“Yeah, but what are we going to do about Kai now?”

“I guess right now all we can do is wait.”


	11. Don’t Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another conversation, in which Deadbolt and Jay discuss what would happen if Deadbolt and the others didn’t hold onto their originals.

The ninja all split up to take care of whatever they needed to take care of after this discussion. Nya called Mystake and ordered more tea, the woman glad to be of help after hearing what had happened. Wu went back to Lloyd’s room to keep him company and keep an eye on him. Cole went to Kai’s room to keep him busy if something were to happen. Jay and Zane went to get everyone some food and deliver it to them so Wu and Cole didn’t have to give up their stations.

Zane, Jay, and Nya had agreed to switch out with Wu and Cole whenever needed to take a break, but after Zane and Jay had given the two guardians their food and had eaten their own, there was plenty of free time left.

“Jay, Nya.” Zane called to get the attention of the couple as they talked to each other. “You said that your nightmares are here to help us. You seem to be in communication with each other. How is that so?”

The two glanced at each other before Nya replied. “Well... I don’t really know how... but the best way to explain it is that my nightmare has just become a voice in my head. Her voice is so distinct that I know it’s her.” She didn’t sound very sure, but Zane nodded slowly as she explained it the best she could.

“Yeah. It just sounds like I’m talking to myself, really. If it weren’t for the robotic and monotone sounding voice, I would just think that I really was talking to myself in my head!” Jay added on, nodding along to Nya’s description.

“And they give you advice and aid?” Zane added on, sounding genuinely curious since this was so new to him. He was recording this all mentally since it potentially valuable information on how realms and fallen realms worked. Who knows, this might be useful at some point in the future!

“Yeah! Neither of them want what happened to their world to happen to ours, so they’re giving us help and advice to keep it from happening!” Jay nodded a bit as he explained this, Nya nodding as well.

“That makes sense. They seem to have lived in a rather distorted version of our reality.” Zane nodded his head slowly. 

Before anyone could say anything else, Cole came in and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. He seemed to be pretty calm at the moment, so Zane simply walked out to keep an eye on Kai while Cole went to do something else. He didn’t say anything, so no one knew what he was going off to do.

Wu was soon to follow Cole, Nya going to take care of and keep a close eye on Lloyd. Her nightmare version busily telling her different maneuvers to use on Lloyd if he were to wake up evil once again, leaving Jay alone with only his thoughts and his nightmare.

Neither of them said anything to each other for a while. Deadbolt himself was not a very chatty person, and Jay simply didn’t have anything to say at the moment. 

“So, uh, whose side were you on back when you were in your realm?” At one point, Jay finally asked his nightmare this question. He was silent for a while before replying with a brief ‘no one’s’. 

Jay let out a soft huff as he went back to being quiet. The silence bothered him, since he was used to someone talking to him or himself talking to someone, but he didn’t have much of a choice of who to talk to. 

In his silence, he went through his memories of the past few days when a specific line from Deadbolt from earlier hit him pretty hard. 

“Hey, Deadbolt, What did you mean earlier when you said if you die, I die?”

‘I was waiting for you to ask that.’ The nightmare gave what resembled a dry laugh before explaining himself to his original. ‘When my Realm was destroyed, I was supposed to be destroyed as well. However, since I grabbed onto you, I was able to continue on existing. Sadly, my existence is very fragile due to not being in my own realm anymore. If something happened to you that caused you to die, I would not only die, but have my entire existence be erased and I would be forgotten.’

Jay nodded a bit to himself as he listened to his nightmare speak. At first thought, that didn’t sound so bad. But the more and more he thought about it, the paler he became. 

If Jay died, Deadbolt wouldn’t just die. His entire existence would be deleted. He would be completely and entirely forgotten with nothing left to show that he even existed in the first place.

‘Why do you think I was so desperate to get you to shock Kai? If he managed to make it out and killed you, like I had a feeling he would, we’d likely both be ended. But in different ways.’

Jay had to take a few deep breaths to keep himself from screaming at this realization. Once he was done, he was struck by another thought.

“If the only real way for you to die now is if I die, then is there really any way to stop the other nightmares from taking over my friends?”

There was a prolonged silence from the nightmare. 

‘I suppose there is no other way to defeat them. The only way to permanently end them and keep them from returning is to destroy whomever they are holding on to.’

Jay slowly shook his head and rubbed his face. This couldn’t be real. It was just some long nightmare, right? He couldn’t believe that killing his friends might be the only way to keep the nightmares from returning. By that logic, only Nya and himself would remain of the team. 

‘I suppose I need to thank you.’ Jay was snapped out of his depressing thoughts when his nightmare began to speak once more. ‘Since you are allowing me to remain in your consciousness and speak to you this way, you are allowing me to continue to live. To continue to exist. To continue to be remembered.’

‘You are allowing me to be remembered. Thank you.’


	12. Of Cake and Snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who remembers the original art created by Prpl/Serpyra: yes. That is a reference to how he is almost always portrayed eating cake.

It had been about a week since Kai had fallen to his nightmare’s clutches. Things had been going as smoothly as they possibly could have been in this situation. Mystake was constantly bringing them tea and different things to help the green and red ninja keep their tempers down and remain unconscious until a true remedy could be found. The other ninja remained on their toes, being ready to do anything and everything it would take to get their friends back.

At that very moment, Zane was on the phone with Mystake and the couple were in the kitchen, talking in low tones. The elderly tea lady insisted that the ninja keep her updated with what all was going on, so she had become a temporary part of the team. Not that anyone was complaining, since she was helping in her own way. 

Jay and Nya were waiting for Cole or Sensei Wu to come out and ask them to take over for a while. But during this wait, Jay took it upon himself to tell Nya of what his nightmare, Deadbolt, told him.

“There’s really no good way to say this out loud...” Jay began, rubbing the back of his neck while Nya let out a sigh.

“I don’t care how you say it. It can’t be that bad, Jay. Just spit it out and we can do what we need to to fix it or help it or whatever!” 

Jay made a face that told Nya that she said something wrong. 

“Would it be that bad if I told you that the only way to permanently get rid of the nightmares is for our friends to die? And that the nightmares wouldn’t just die but permanently be erased with nothing to show that they even existed except for our memories?”

Nya leaned back, as if this information had physically attacked her. She took a moment to collect her thought before slowly nodding.

“Not that bad, but certainly close.” She muttered, leaning forward again. “So... the only way to free my brother from the nightmare permanently is... is to...” She had to take a moment again before spitting it out. “To kill him?”

Jay slowly nodded his head before sighing heavily. “That’s what I was told.”

“Your nightmare-“

“You know what? Let’s get the nightmares to give themselves names for us to call them so we don’t just keep calling them the nightmares all the time. I mean, sure it’s a kinda cool title but it gets weird that we call them all nightmares when we could just treat ours like people-“

“Jay, you’re rambling. We can get names later.” Nya interjected, a small smile on her face. Jay always rambles when he gets a bit nervous. This was clearly starting to worry him. “But your nightmare told you that, right? How did he know that?”

Jay went to answer her question, only to fall silent. How did his nightmare know that? 

‘When my realm was falling apart, I had to grab a hold of you. I had lost all hope at that point and thought that death would release me.’ Deadbolt spoke up, already hearing everything. ‘I was wrong. I nearly got erased. I managed to grab a hold of you just in time. But I do not want to have the same feeling of when I was being erased ever again.’ 

Jay let out a soft ‘oh’ and nodded his head a bit. That made sense. Nya watched him with a certain look, understanding why he was acting like this. Anyone else would have thought that he had finally gone off the deep end. 

“He knows because he nearly experienced it. He was going to let himself go, but decided to hang on when he got the feeling of what was really going on. Oh! Yeah, and what’s your name?” Jay addressed Nya and told her this before suddenly stopping and waiting.

// His name is Deadbolt.\\\

‘Call me Deadbolt.’

Nya and Jay looked at each other at the same time. 

“Deadbolt?”

“How did you know?”

Nya simply tapped her head. The boy in the room took a moment before nodding with another soft ‘oh’. 

//Before you ask, just call me Anya. I’ve always been partial to that name.\\\

Nya took a moment to give a small roll of her eyes with a smile at her nightmare before relaying this information to Jay. “I’ll just call my nightmare Anya.”

Before Jay could even shoot out some response, Cole came in with a tired yawn. He had taken the night shift last night for Lloyd and insisted on staying until morning. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at the others, and a noticeable chill ran over him.

“Ugh, someone turn up the thermostat. It’s freezing down here!” The earth ninja rubbed his arms and went to get something to eat before heading to bed to sleep a bit. 

“Cold, really? It’s actually kind of warm down here.” Jay raised an eyebrow at Cole. “It’s summer, remember? This week has been sweltering, too!”

“I know, I know, lightning mouth, but I’m still cold!” Cole snapped back. The usual note of sarcasm and playfulness in his voice wasn’t there.

Sirens went off in Nya’s head. 

Anya was getting loud and worried. 

//Cole is next. There’s only one person who is always freezing, and that’s Coltrane. Cole’s nightmare.\\\

Nya let out a wince and put a hand to her head, the sudden and loud voice giving her a bit of a headache. It hurt, but Nya knew that this was important information she needed to relay to the others. She considered letting Cole know about this as well, but Anya quickly told her not to.

//Tell Cole and you’ll be telling Coltrane you know he’s coming. We don’t know just how strong his grasp is yet, we can’t accidently set him off. He may not seem that bad from afar, but he’s lethal when mad.\\\

Nya cleared her throat quietly to keep herself calm, waiting for her friend to leave the room. Cole leaned against the wall and ate what looked to be a piece of cake with one hand. Jay had been watching him with a visibly disgusted expression when he heard Nya clear her throat. 

“I’ll go and keep an eye on Lloyd. Jay, why don’t you come with me to see if Sensei wants to switch out?”

“Wu would come and tell us if he needs a break.” Jay replied, not catching on until Nya gave him a hard look. She went back to normal when Cole glanced at her, but Jay, thankfully, had caught on. “Oh! Yeah, sure thing! He might have fallen asleep.” Jay quickly backtracked, getting up and leaving with Nya in tow.

Neither of them noticed the suspicious look in Cole’s eyes. 

“That was close.” Nya got Jay, and grabbed onto Zane when she saw him, to a room not too far away from Lloyd’s room before she could even think about saying this.

“What was close? What’s going on?” Zane looked between the two other ninja with a slightly worried expression. Since he wasn’t in the room and was still on the phone, he didn’t catch all of what had happened.

“To put it simply, Cole is going to be the next one to go down.” 

Jay didn’t bother stopping a gasp while Zane was clearly shocked.

“Anya, my nightmare, was able to recognize his behavior and warn me. We need to keep a close eye on him, but we can’t let him know that we know that Coltrane, his nightmare, is taking over. We don’t know how much of a hold he has on him, so we have to be careful.” The water ninja explained this to the others, the two nodding their heads. 

There was an odd and uncomfortable silence after that. None of them seemed to know what to do. 

“At this rate, if my own nightmare does come after me, you two will be the only ones left of the team in about a week or two.” Zane finally pointed this out, deciding that they should make a plan for if, and or when, this does happen.

Jay gulped heavily at the thought, slowly looking between his own friends. “What even will happen when it’s just you, me, Wu, and Mystake? Do we continue to try and keep the others out? Do we... do we...finish this permanently...?”

Nya looked a bit distraught at the thought of that and quickly looked up at them. “It won’t come to that. It can’t come to that. We won’t let it. Come on, we better actually check on Wu. And one of us should stay near Cole, too. We can’t let another one of us go down.”


	13. The Nightmare Continues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coltrane shows how much of a threat he could be if he wants, and Deadbolt proves himself a powerful ally and friend.

It had only been a few minutes since Zane had left to keep an eye on Lloyd and Jay had gone off to keep a close eye on Cole. Nya has been left alone to her thoughts and the thoughts of Anya. The two were discussing some things seriously, when a sudden yet very important question popped into Nya’s mind.

“Hey, Anya... what’re we up against if Cole’s nightmare-“

//Coltrane. His name is Coltrane.\\\

“What’re we up against if Coltrane takes over Cole?” Nya couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the fact that she quite literally just interrupted herself. It was an amusing yet unsettling thought amongst all that had been happening.

In relation to unsettling, the long silence from Anya felt that way to her. She clearly was trying to find a good way to put this...

“Come on, Anya. It can’t be that bad. We’ve faced snake people, stone warriors, nindroids, anacondrai wannabes, an army of ghosts, and a djinn. We can handle whatever one nightmare can throw at us.”

//Exactly. One nightmare. Not almost all of them at once.\\\ Anya let out a sigh, and Nya had a feeling that if she had her own body, she would be rubbing her face. //If the others have a fraction of the amount of intelligence Coltrane has, they’ll back off and slowly start to take over their originals as well. They won’t rush and make stupid decisions, like they just did... and as much as I would like to say that they don’t have such intelligence, they do. They’ll figure it out.\\\

“That’s good to know, but that doesn’t answer my question.” Nya pointed this out calmly, trying to keep herself from wanting to panic at the thought of the other nightmares finally taking over her friends and brother at their weakest moment. “What will we be dealing with if Coltrane and only Coltrane manages to take over Cole?”

There was another moment of awkward silence. Anya was gathering her words. 

//He’s... he’s a killer.\\\ Anya had to pause to collect her thoughts and her words. This was a very heavy subject for her. //Coltrane, when he was turned, got this insatiable blood lust. He started to roam the streets, searching for anyone who might be in his path. No matter who or what it was, he would kill it. And if I’m right, he won’t even show you or Jay any mercy. He knows that you and I are threats. And he doesn’t care about Jay anymore. He doesn’t care about anyone.\\\

Nya took a moment to let this settle in. If Coltrane managed to take over Cole successfully, they would have a cold blooded killer on their hands. He doesn’t appear to have a rhyme or reason... 

Kai’s nightmare was a threat because he was a cold ruler that only cared for himself.

Lloyd’s nightmare was a threat because he was a bratty version of his father who wanted to turn Ninjago back into the nightmarish reality it once was for him.

But Cole’s nightmare...? If he took over and made it out to the streets, he would just kill. 

Nya wasn’t sure which one was to be feared more.

//He actually killed one of my closest friends from the rebellion.\\\ Anya continued, her voice revealing the sadness and anger she still harbored from this. //He went out, going to get some supplies for the base to help some injured friends of ours. The trip itself shouldn’t have taken long, so we got worried when he wasn’t back by nightfall. Harumi convinced me that he had taken shelter with another ally, that we shouldn’t worry.

//The next day, when he didn’t return, even she started to worry. Myself and a few others went out to search for him. He... he didn’t even make it to get the supplies.\\\ Anya had to pause, her voice shaking. She calmed herself the best she could and continued. //His body was found barely recognizable.\\\

Nya covered her mouth at this story, swallowing heavily. She was thankful that she didn’t have access to Anya’s memories; she didn’t want to have to see that. 

// A few others of the rebellion have gone missing before while going to get something or give something to someone. We normally know if they’ve been captured. So when they just... up and dissapear...\\\ Anya could not finish that thought. Nya didn’t need or want her to.

“I get it. He’s a killer, and we can’t let him take over Cole.” Nya sighed softly and leaned against the wall to let this all settle in. Things were not going to go well if Coltrane did manage to take over the earth master. At that very thought, there was a loud shout from where Cole and Jay were last seen. 

Nya nearly jumped out of her skin at the shout since she was so deep in her own thoughts, and those of Anya, but she quickly snapped into fighting mode and ran out of the room, grabbing the nearest weapon to be ready to fight if need be. She slowed down significantly when she approached the room, eyes widening slightly in shock when she saw what was going on inside the room.

Cole and Jay were both watching each other very carefully, Cole baring his teeth in anger. Something he would never do normally, even if Jay had annoyed him. But Jay... Jay was acting weird as well. He had no emotion on his face, simply holding onto his nunchucks like his life depended on it. Which it probably did.

“Get out of my way.” Cole growled lowly. It was rather apparent to Nya that Coltrane had a rather firm grasp on him for him to be acting this way.

“Cole, snap out of it.” Jay responded. His voice... it had a bit of a robotic monotone to it. It was rather eerie. “Coltrane, you need to evaluate what you are going to say and do next very carefully.”

“Your threatsss don’t bother me!” He hissed, quite literally, in return. He attempted to attack the lightning ninja, only for Jay to step to the side with ease. 

“And your attacks don’t bother me. Why are you here? Why are you trying to take over him?”

“The sssame reasson why you are here. I don’t want to be forgotten!” Cole spat this angrily and went in for another attack, this time holding his weapon. Jay used his nunchucks to quickly hold it in place and gave him a swift kick to the side, making him let out a soft grunt.

“People like you deserve to be forgotten.” Jay spat back coldly, jerking the weapon out of Cole’s grasp when he was distracted. “You hurt people. You killed people. Not for any reason but your own blood lust. You didn’t care about them and you don’t even feel bad about it.” Jay put an emphasis on killed. “You don’t deserve to be remembered.” Cole looked a little surprised and shocked at this somewhat cruel statement, but his eyes lit up with fury as he growled lowly. He wasn’t going to just stand around and take that.

Especially since not all of it was true.

Jay’s hands started to spark, and before Cole could once again attack, he was grabbed by the back of the neck and shocked with a high voltage. The earth ninja’s body tensed up, gave a few spasms, and finally fell limp against the floor.

Nya had stayed back in sheer shock during the small interaction the two nightmares had, merely watching in shock. The two didn’t even fight or talk much, they were just bickering a bit. She looked up in surprise when Jay turned to her with the still serious look on his face. 

“We need to find a way to detain him. With this large of a grasp, he should not even be allowed to lay down on the bed without being bound.” The monotone voice remained prominent as well. It didn’t take much to convince Nya that this is Deadbolt being in control over Jay. 

“Vengestone? Do you guys even have control over your powers?” Nya raised an eyebrow, glancing at Cole, then back to the other ‘possessed’ ninja. 

“Kai, Zane, and I all have control over our powers. Zane simply doesn’t use them. He is too mentally unstable to do so. Coltrane, we don’t know. And Lloyd stays- er- stayed cooped up with his father all the time. I’m unsure of him, as well. But I would say yes, to be prepared.” Jay nodded his head calmly and waited for a few moments, his eyes shut. 

After those few moments passed, Jay groaned and held a hand to his head, leaning against something to stop himself from being so dizzy. “Ugh... what just happened...?”

Nya nearly dropped her jaw at the odd question he had just asked. She took a moment to think about what had just happened before sighing heavily. “Coltrane took over Cole and Deadbolt took over you to try and take him out. Which he did. I’ll give a bit more detail when I get back. Until I do, watch Cole like a hawk.” 

The water ninja didn’t give Jay much of a chance to answer, reply, or even get out some sort of witty retort to snap back at her for not giving him an actual explanation. She simply turned on her heel, walked out, and put a hand to her head as her mind started to whirl with the information she was just given.


	14. Allies and Giggles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These nightmares may not be what they seem...

Cole was properly taken care of. He had been taken back to a room, but some vengestone was used just in case Coltrane had control over the earth ninja’s element. Nya had been tasked with watching over him. Wu was watching over Kai, and Zane was told to keep an eye on Lloyd. This was not going how Jay thought it was going to go.

The lightning ninja was on the deck, watching the pale rainbow of a sunrise get blotted out with dark clouds. It was probably going to rain today. Like things could get any worse for him and the other ninja. 

He sighed softly, resting his head in the palm of his hand as he simply watched the sunrise and thought. He and the others have dealt with worse before. Serpentine armies, stone armies, the overlord, another serpentine army that was actually a cult, an army of ghosts, and a tricky band of pirates. But this was unlike anything they have ever gone up against before.

They were fighting themselves. 

They were fighting against something they could not see nor touch. Something that shouldn’t even exist any more. Something from a different realm. 

‘Just another day in Ninjago.’

Jay let out a soft snort as he heard the all too familiar voice. They clearly were once the same person. 

“You can say that again. Though, I’ve gotta admit, this is something we’ve never dealt with before. Yeah, we’ve handled possession, but at least we knew about these ghosts and knew their weakness. With you guys, we’re pretty much stuck, since we are technically the same people.”

‘The fact that most of us have taken over your minds well enough to almost have full control adds a new aspect to it, too.’ Deadbolt added. ‘We know your memories, but you only have limited access to our own.’

Jay nodded his head in agreement, though he didn’t know if he knew he did or not. “We’re at an unfair disadvantage. Especially since most of the others are down and out...” As he said this, his mind started to drift a bit. He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Hey, Uh, Deadbolt... What do you think’ll happen if the others succeed in taking over and get out...?”

There was an eerie silence. Jay started to wish he hadn’t asked.

“Never mind, it’s not like it’s even going to happen anyway.” Jay quickly followed up his question with this. “We’ll be fine.”

‘No, no. I do think you should know what might happen if all else fails.’ Deadbolt sighed softly. ‘From what I have seen, you have friends and enemies. From what I remember from my own realm, if they were to hear that the ninja were evil, they would try and take advantage of it and potentially kill your friends. This realm is rather lucky; the police force is somewhat competent and will be able to try and protect the city and the people. However, if Lloyd were to find the helmet and regain control of the stone army and if Kai does get to the underworld and regain control of the skulkins... The people by themselves have no chance. This realm will fall, and this realm will become the nightmare we came from.’

Jay took a moment to think before he wildly shook his head. He’ll make a mental note to get the helmet away from the museum to another location and to tell Mystake to make sure there is no travelers tea anywhere. Just in case. He looked up once more to see that the beautiful sunrise had vanished behind a wall of dark clouds. He took this as a sign and walked back inside, mind heavy with the information he now has.

Nya had been watching over Cole for a good twenty minutes now. She brought a book with her and was reading, looking up every minute or so to make sure that everything was still going smoothly. She didn’t want to zone out and allow the nightmare time to try and escape. 

After a few more minutes, Cole groaned and looked like he was starting to wake up. Nya quickly looked, thinking, hoping, that Cole might have regained control.

But when Cole looked up with a low snarl escaping, Nya’s heart sank. 

The water ninja set her book down and sighed, shaking her head as she watched him writhe around and try to get out. 

“You can stop that. You monsters are not going to get out and terrorize Ninjago ever again!”

He seemed to stop for a moment at this, Coltrane slowly turning to look at Nya with narrowed eyes. 

“Monster? Ha. Never heard that one before.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm and a slight hiss. “Do you really think we want to be like this?”

Nya was more than happy to come up with something to snap back with, but that last sentence made her choke on her words. She looked surprised.

“Say that last part again?”

“Do you really think we want to be like this?” Coltrane obliged, to Nya’s further shock. “We were turned. Changed. None of us had a choice in the matter! I don’t know about the others, but I just want to continue to exist! I’m not asking you to trust me. I can get why you don’t, my friends possessing yours and all. But I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore, I just want to live!”

“If that’s true, then why did you attack and kill anyone who you came across?” Nya asked the first question on her mind, which happened to be the question of Anya.

“They wanted to kill me.” Coltrane was blunt, but somewhat regretful. “Whenever someone came across me, they wanted to kill me. Do I blame them? Not really. But in the moment, I knew I needed to protect myself. So... I did what I had to.”

Nya was glad she was still sitting down. This was a big piece of information. She rubbed her head for a few moments before looking back up.

“Coltrane... I don’t trust you. But... if you will allow Cole to take back over... and you two find a compromise to work together... then we might be able to just let you be.” 

He looked shocked and his expression screamed suspicion. “And why would you let me do that?”

“We will let you do that so you can continue to exist. You may even be helpful to Cole and the rest of us. Deadbolt and Anya are already doing the same with Jay and me.”

There was a moment of silence between the two, Coltrane looking down for a moment. He took a deep breath before shutting his eyes. After a few moments, Cole’s body began to sway and his eyes reopened. 

“Ugh... what happened...?” Cole tried to put a hand to his head, only to see himself all tied up. Nya quickly got up and came over, helping him out.

“I think we might have just gained another ally.”

Jay walked back in and found himself being very surprised at the sight of Zane. He was supposed to be watching one of the others, what is he doing out here? 

The lightning ninja came over and went to put a hand on his shoulder, only to stop himself. Zane seemed to be... giggling? Jay felt a little disturbed by this and tilted his head, trying to make sense of what Zane was muttering under his breath as well.

“Stop that, you are acting ridiculous. But I don’t wanna! I said stop.” He was talking to himself. His voice seemed to glitch as he said one part, causing Jay to slowly back up and away.

‘InZane.’

“You can say that again...”

‘No, not insane. InZane. That was the name the people gave nightmare Zane when they discovered how he was acting.’

Zane turned around when he heard Jay mutter under his breath, the nindroid seeming to be rather annoyed. He was already disliking sharing a body with his nightmare version.

“Jay, it seems as thought we have a problem. While he is not hostile, I do not know how to deal with this... this nightmare!” 

“Wait, he’s not being hostile...? That’s... that’s a surprise.” Jay was audibly surprised, and Deadbolt seemed to be rather surprised as well. 

“I have reason to believe that since all of my wires and circuitry are in place, he is acting more sane than usual. My body is affecting his spirit.”

“I guess that makes sense. If he is going to take over, he has all of the wires already in place. Huh. Go figure.” Jay scratched his head at this.

“I don’t believe that he will be much help as of now, but I do not think that he is a threat, either.”

“Good. At least we have one more semi-ally now.” 

Zane couldn’t help himself but twitch and let out a soft giggle.

“Stop that.”


	15. Fire!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kai’s nightmare shows himself and makes an escape.

“Lloyd and Kai have not woken up in days.” Zane spoke calmly, but with a bit of worry in his voice. “We need to get them to eat, but we can not risk waking them up and releasing one of the nightmares. Mystake, what should we do?”

The older woman sighed on the other end of the line and Zane could hear some muttering and the clanking of tea pots as she did something. 

“I know as much as you do. This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before! You may just have to tie them down and try to get them to eat.” 

“That was what we were planning on doing.”

“Good. Oh, please tell Jay that the museum has removed the helmet and put it in a safe place. Doctor Saunders made sure of it. I’m getting rid of all my traveler’s tea right now.” Zane sighed in relief when he heard this, Jay having told him what Deadbolt said. They warned Mystake just in case the worst happened. They had to be ready, just in case the worst was to become reality.

“I’ll be sure to tell him this. Thank you for all your help, Mystake.”

“Of course! I live here too, you know.” The slightly playful tone in her voice made Zane want to giggle as well, but he kept it under control for the moment. 

“We will keep you updated with what goes on. Please stay on your guard.” 

“I never let my guard down.” And with that, she hung up.

Zane sighed softly and set the phone down as an all too familiar giggle echoed in his mind. He sighed softly and waited for him to gather his thoughts to try and make a coherent sentence.

‘Thêÿ ærêñ’t gœñńâ bè håppÿ!’ He giggled again. ‘Døń’t wäkē thėm ūp!’ 

Zane did not appreciate the cryptic message. He already had to deal with Sensei Wu’s cryptic messages, he doesn’t need to get them from InZane, too! The message itself wasn’t all that cryptic, he was able to assume that they wouldn’t be happy about being woken up and tied up like what they were planning on doing. But there was clearly a bit of a warning there as well. 

‘Thėÿ âłwãÿś håvê æ płāń!’ 

That was ominous. Zane sighed and shook his head, going to the kitchen. It was a marvel to see Jay having made some decent food with the kitchen like area mostly intact. He’s been a lot more jittery ever since he got that warning from Deadbolt about what might come next.

“Jay?”

Jay jumped a bit, but turned around and sighed in relief when he saw that it was only Zane.

“Hey, Zane. What did Mystake say? Is there a better way to do this?”

“I’m afraid not. We will have to go with what we had originally planned.”

“Tie them up and hope they’ll be willing to eat or at least have our friends in control?”

“That would be the original plan.” Zane nodded. “We should do it one at a time. Perhaps almost everyone should be in the same room to ensure nothing happens.” Jay nodded his head at this. They couldn’t be that strong, but they couldn’t underestimate any of them. It was too risky. 

“We should do Lloyd first. He’s been out without food the longest.” Jay sighed heavily and got what they needed. It was just a healthy meal and some water, hopefully there would be some cooperation. Surely the nightmare knows that if he wants to take over his body fully, he has to actually have a healthy body. He can’t do anything if he’s starving.

“I believe that it would be best that you stay with Kai while he is out of it. Deadbolt and Anya know how to deal with him best, but we need Anya and Nya to help with Lloyd.” All of these new names were starting to become more confusing than helpful. But they would live and learn to get used to it.

Jay didn’t seem too happy with this idea, but nodded his head a bit. “I’ll keep an eye on him. Just make sure someone else comes to check in on me every once in a while.”

“There should be nothing to worry about. We have had one person watch over them both this entire time and there has been no trouble.”

“Yeah, because they were out of it the entire time!”

“If he wakes up, call for us. Someone else will come to help if need be.” Zane sighed softly. “Jay, why are you acting so paranoid? This is not like you.”

Jay sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to find a good way to put this so he doesn’t sound like he’s gone off the deep end. “Something tells me that something bad is gonna happen. I can just tell! It’s not like a sixth sense sort of thing, it’s just...” Jay made a motion to the area around him. 

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“It’s just in the air, okay?! I can feel it, something bad is going to happen at some point! We are up against not ghosts, not snakes, not pirates, but ourselves! Literally! We’re up against our own spirits from a different realm from a different timeline where we were almost all evil or just flat out insane! And apparently they can possess us like ghosts and make us do things! I guess four of them might be good, we don’t even know for sure, but two almost for sure wanna wreak havoc on Ninjago and turn this place into the nightmarish reality they once lived in!” 

The fact that this all came out in one breath was both impressive and worrisome. 

“Jay, I need you to calm down. I understand, this is something we have never dealt with before. But we have help. We are slowly learning how to prepare and possibly defeat them if they do somehow manage to take over Kai and Lloyd. Mystake knows what is going on and is preparing herself to help the citizens. And we already have the leader of the rebels from that realm on our side.”

“We are more prepared than you think we are, Jay. Take a deep breath. Everything will be fine.”

Jay, against what the rest of his mind was telling him, did as told. He took a deep breath in before releasing it slowly. He took a moment to think with his eyes shut before opening them again and nodding to Zane.

“Better?”

“Much.”

Zane sighed in relief and picked up the food once again. “We need to get this over with.”

“Sound good to me. I’ll watch Kai, you go and deal with Lloyd.” Jay finally walked out of the room, seeming to feel quite a bit better. He could handle this, it was going to be just fine!

Nya had been tasked with making sure Lloyd didn’t break out of his bonds. Cole was chilling in the corner of the room, seeming to be wrapped up in a conversation with himself. With what had been going on lately she wasn’t sure if it was himself or an alternate version of himself... She shook her head to get back into focusing on what was important.

Lloyd was waking up. 

Zane came in and had some food for the green ninja, seeming relaxed until he noticed that he was starting to wake up. He prepared himself for the worst and Nya prepared herself as well.

There was a massive sigh of relief at the sight of Lloyd’s green eyes. 

“Guys...? Ugh, my head... He’s so annoying.” Lloyd winced loudly as he said the last part. It looked like provoking him was resulting in a headache.

“It seems as though he’s leaving you be for now...” Zane mused, more than relieved when he realized that the nightmare didn’t have control over Lloyd at the moment.

“Yeah, but he’s still here. And he’s making sure I know how much he hates me. It’s a lot.” Lloyd winced again and looked down at the chains.

“Sorry, we couldn’t risk anything. We found out what might happen if he got out...” Cole laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head while Lloyd tilted his head. Since he had restricted access to his nightmare’s memories he wasn’t quite sure of everything that would come to be. He had seen what that world looked like, but there wasn’t a lot of detail.

“He would try to retake over Ninjago.”

“Not surprised.” Lloyd sighed. That was one of the most cliche villain tropes and even he fell victim to it. Cute. The pounding headache that resulted after this thought made him wince loudly. 

“What’s happening, Lloyd? You okay?” Nya leaned down a bit with a worried but wary look. 

“Whenever I say something he doesn’t like he tries to argue with me and makes my head hurt like hell...” Lloyd sighed, hoping to get a bit of a break from the splitting headache.

Cole and Zane exchanged wary looks. This was good information to keep around. It sounded like it might be important later on.

“Would you mind giving me some of that food? I’m starving!” The sudden change of topic was more than welcome. 

“Gladly.”

“Fair warning, Jay made it.” Cole snickered a bit in hopes of keeping the slightly somber mood from becoming anything too bad.

“It’s nothing. It can’t be as bad as your cooking.” Lloyd retorted as Zane carefully helped him eat. He felt very uncomfortable being fed like this, but he understood why it was necessary. They had to leave him tied up in case the little annoyance in his head decided to become an even bigger annoyance. 

With how much is stomach had contracted while not eating, he had to take breaks between bites to allow his body some time to recover and register what was going on. But during one of these breaks, Cole perked up and looked around.

“Does anyone else smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“I smell it too...” Lloyd took a moment before he realized what was going on. The look of understanding crossed his eyes before disappearing. He had to be shut up. His eyes slowly turned red again and Zane took a step back.

Nya started to smell of as well and she understood the moment Anya understood. 

Smoke. 

And where there’s smoke, there’s a fire.

“Check on Kai, now! I’ll hold Lloyd down!” He started to struggle so Anya made sure to keep him down. She drew some water from a nearby glass in case she needed to knock some sense into him. 

Cole and Zane dropped what they were doing and dashed down the hall. The smoke was a lot thicker and they could clearly see Jay unconscious on the floor. Flames were licking up the walls, but Kai was nowhere to be found. 

Cole went in and grabbed Jay, dragging him out as Zane started to control the fire, sending ice up the walls to help smother the flames. Some water and water vapor resulted, but they could clean that and the ash up later on. They had much more to worry about at the moment.

The main one being...

Where was Kai?

“Nya, get over here!”

“Jay, can you hear us? Please try to wake up!”

“Jay we need you to snap out of it and wake up! WAKE UP!”

‘That deceitful little... I won’t fall for that again. I shouldn’t have trusted him. I’m sorry.’

“Don’t you trust your friend? Look, I can help! I want to help! Just like you and my sister are! I just need to get out, I can talk some sense into Lloyd!”

Fire. There was fire. And a lot of it. His arm had been burned pretty badly, he could remember that. Deadbolt missed his friend. He wanted to trust him, but he had burned through the ropes and was quick to try to burn him, too. 

The only reason why he made it out alive was because Kai got spooked off because of the talking down the hall. He was easily able to make out Nya speaking. Or was that Anya? He didn’t know and at the moment he didn’t care. His mind was too busy at the moment to add one other thing to think about. 

It took a few moments, but Jay finally woke up and looked around the room. He was on the floor still. In Lloyd’s room. The green ninja was still glaring at him since the others didn’t have enough time to knock him out.

“Coward.” He spat angrily up at him.

“Traitor.” Lloyd hissed back.

Deadbolt was about to say something in response when Jay took back control. He was having too much of a headache to want to get into an argument with another nightmare.

“Jay, are you okay? What happened back there?” Cole bent down, looking deeply worried. Jay was his best friend, and for some reason, he had a feeling Coltrane was listening as well.

“Kai tried to convince me to let him go. He kept saying that he was like Deadbolt and Anya and wanted to help. Of course, he just burned my arm and broke free anyway.” He sighed and made a motion to his now bandaged arm. It still hurt, but it was a lot better than what it had been earlier...

Cole’s eyes flashed for a moment. But there was no danger in them. Only anger and then realization. 

As the other began to fuss about Jay once more Coltrane promised him that he would help him. 

No one would hurt his friends on his watch ever again.


	16. Kaiser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai and his nightmare finally get to properly meet each other, stumbling along in the desert as the nightmare begins his plot for revenge.

Kai fought back as hard as he possibly could, but nothing was working. Was this what Lloyd felt like when he was being possessed by Morro? If so, he could understand why he was so drained after Morro left. It took a lot to even try and regain some control over his own body. Once he was far enough away from the other his nightmare finally gave in and listened to what he had to say.

“Bastard.” He snarled lowly, only for a voice similar to his own to snap something back with the same amount of hatred in his voice.

“Idiot.”

“If that’s the best you’ve got you have worse insults than Jay.” Kai growled a bit, but couldn’t stop the relief that washed over him when his body finally leaned against the wall. “How could you hurt Jay like that? He’s our friend-”

“No, he’s your friend. Deadbolt is nothing but a traitor and a coward.”

“The only coward here is you! You tried to fool him into letting you go only to get burned! Isn’t that what you did to your Nya?!”

“I did what I had to do. I don’t care who gets hurt, I have my goals and I will do whatever it takes to achieve them. Including burning my own sister.”

There was a brief silence between the two of them.

“Would you even hurt your Lloyd?”

“What kind of question is that?” The anger and hostility that rapidly increased in his voice gave something away to Kai. “I would never hurt him. Never. Don’t even try to suggest that I would ever again.”

So he hit a nerve? Hm… Maybe he could use this in some way.

“So you willingly hurt your own sister, but you wouldn’t hurt Lloyd? I think that’s called a double standard.”

“Shut up. He has nothing to do with this.”

“Considering that he is technically the one who started this whole thing, he has everything to do with this.”

The nightmare version of the fire ninja groaned and hit himself in the head, causing them both to grunt softly in pain. It wasn’t that bad, but with how far they had moved away from the Bounty in such a short period of time, the body they were sharing was still a little sore.

“Okay, okay, sheesh… But even after all this time, you still care about Lloyd? Even though you don’t seem to care about your own sister?” Kai still inquired this of him. It didn’t make sense that he would ever care about one and not the other.

“Care is a strong word.” The other voice muttered this lowly, seeming to try and find a way to explain this to him. Why he was even taking the time to explain this to him was beyond him.

“HEY-”

“Calm down.” Right. He needed to guard his thoughts more carefully now. He couldn’t let his original find out what his plan was. He still needed to get on his good side and find a way to get on Lloyd’s good side.

“I don’t want him to be hurt, and I wouldn’t dare hurt him myself. That would be suicide. The thing is… Actually, I don’t need to tell you. You don’t need to know.” When he stood up again, Kai started to try and find a way to get him to stop and keep talking. The more he knew, the better. If he could figure out what was going to happen before it happened and regained control even slightly he could help his friends out!

“What? Are you too much of a coward to tell me? I had a feeling you nightmares were nothing but cowards. Sheep in wolves’ clothing.”

The taunting tone in his voice deeply disturbed the nightmare and he was quick to fire back at him.

“I am sick and tired of being stuck in the underworld! I won’t hurt Lloyd -that would still be suicide- but I will do whatever it takes to remain on the surface! I don’t want to be the Emperor of the Skulkins, I just want to be in the light again! And I will burn down anyone who gets in my way!” The fury in his voice grew higher and higher with every passing word. He was tired of the darkness. Not even his fire could light up all the darkness of the underworld.

Did Kai hear a twinge of fear in his voice at the end?

“Why do you refuse to hurt Lloyd? Wouldn’t he be the one in your way?”

“His father would be the one in my way. But sorting through your memories, I can see that this world’s Garmadon is dead and gone. Glad I got out of there before he realized it. I don’t want to see how that tantrum plays out…”

“Tantrum?” Kai didn’t bother suppressing a snort. Even his nightmare snickered a bit.

“Yeah, tantrum.” He never minded sharing a bit of dirt on the others. His original may be his enemy but this was too good not to share. “He didn’t get the chance to actually grow up like your Lloyd did. He is technically an adult, but he doesn’t act like it. Don’t piss him off, though. He can be dangerous when he wants to be. It can’t be good if I hear stories about what happened from the underworld. Don’t ask how, I don’t know how, either.”

“Yikes… noted. What happened to him, anyway?” Kai would have tilted his head slightly, but that wasn’t an option. He was slightly surprised with how his nightmare got a little friendly while discussing one of his former friends. The friendliness soon dissipated, but there was not much hostility in his voice as he replied.

“No one really knows. I was ‘punished’ for helping him before he was turned.” His voice became cold, but it wasn’t directed towards Kai. “Garmadon was the one who sent me down. He was thankful that I saved Lloyd’s life and offered me to join him. I refused, and that’s when he sent me down to the underworld.” His voice grew to be cold as he stated this.

“Wow.” What else could the fire ninja say in response to this? “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Don’t be. You weren’t there to stop it.” The way his voice remained cold would have made him shudder. There seemed to be an implication in his words as well.

“And what do you mean by that…?”

“Guess.”

“Nya?”

“Ha, no.”

“Wait… Lloyd?”

“Bingo.”

That tone of voice could have made a thermostat drop. Kai shuddered even though he didn’t have full control over his body. He was starting to understand what was going on. His nightmare felt betrayed by Lloyd because while he was watching, he did not stop his father from sending him down to that world. His anger, and maybe even fear, burned and boiled higher and higher until he snapped and became like this.

It made sense to him.

“I really do not care what you think of me or if you keep trying to figure me out. Just stay out of my way, or you’ll be burned, too.”

“You have made that clear, Kaiser.” Kai huffed a bit. He would just have to work with what he had at the moment. He would get more information and try to help his friends some way.

But maybe he needed his trust, first.


	17. Day of the Departed Special Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t necessarily canon to the events of ANR. It was a special chapter for Halloween one year.

None of this is particularly canon. Take it as you will~

Day of the Departed. Cole didn’t have stronger feelings towards any other holiday.

He didn’t feel comfortable celebrating with his father that year, so he called him and asked that he forgive him. He just needed some time to himself. He repeated this message to the ninja, and they seemed to understand. They warned him to be careful, since they could never let their guard down. He waved them away and told them to enjoy their time hanging out with little kids.

Once the others had left, he went outside and just looked up at the sky. The sky had turned dark, and stars were littered through the sky. He scanned over all of them with an uninterested look, his thoughts instead on the voice echoing through his mind.

’Do you still go to celebrate with Dad and light a lantern for Mom?’ 

"Of course I do. I didn’t go to celebrate with him tonight. I had a feeling you wanted to talk to me one on one." Cole let out a soft sigh and rubbed his arms. He always got a little cold while talking to Coltrane, for some odd reason.

’You didn’t have to do that.’

"If we want this to work out we need to communicate."

’You make it sound like we’re some sort of couple.’

’’We might as well be, sharing the same body and all.’’

’Nevermind, please don’t say that ever again.’

Cole snickered to himself lightly as Coltrane groaned in disgust at the thought. If anything, they were less of a couple and more like siblings. They would fight and squabble, but no one else could touch them. Him? Them? Ugh, thinking about that sort of thing too long would give him a headache.

’’Anyway, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?’’ Cole looked up at the sky as he continued to talk to him. He could imagine him standing next to him, and he felt like he could feel him there. But he knew that if he turned to look, there wouldn’t be anyone there.

He was alone with his thoughts.

’I wanted to ask you to do something for me.’ He sounded unsure. That was not normal for him.

’’Sure thing. Shoot.’’ Cole got comfortable with how he was leaning, not knowing if there was going to be a story before this or not.

’Well, back in my old realm-’ Yep. There was going to be a story. ’Hey, don’t interrupt. Rude. Anyway, back in the nightmare realm, we still celebrated Day of the Departed. I was roaming around one night and notice that a lot more lanterns had been released. It wasn’t normal. I did a little digging...’

’’Digging?’’

’I grabbed a guy off the street and threatened to hurt him if he didn’t tell me why the lanterns had been lit.’ There was a bit of embarrassment in his voice as he said this out loud. Cole simply nodded his head a bit. He knew a lot about his past since he had finally opened up his memories to his original.

’Back to what I was saying, I grabbed someone and managed to find out why the lanterns had been lit. They had been lit for us. The people thought of us as dead, the ninja that had fought to protect them had become the ones to hurt them. They let the lanterns fly for us… At the time I was pretty ticked off at this but… Now I know that we really were and are now dead...’

’’Let me guess. You want me to light a lantern for you.’’ Cole’s voice was much more gentle than usual. He felt a little bad. He technically was dead… As was the rest of his realm and all of his friends. Man, that’s heavier than what he signed up for.

’If you wouldn’t mind.’

’’And I don’t.’’ Cole wished he could set a hand on his shoulder. He sounded like he needed a little comfort. ’’I’ll get a lantern for you. I know the perfect place to see it off, too.’’

’Cole, you are too nice.’

’’Don’t tell anyone else.’’ The more playful tone of voice sparked a laugh from the former nightmare, making Cole feel a bit better.

The earth ninja jogged over to the edge of the area where he was standing and jumped off, forming his elemental dragon. He didn’t feel like getting any sort of vehicle. He wanted to be able to look up at the stars as he flew to the nearest area to get a lantern.

Cole flew above the earth he loved so much below him. It felt odd to want to be disconnected with his element, but he had a feeling he knew why he felt that way. For a part of him, it was not his earth. It was not his land, it was not the place that he had grown to love so much. The disconnect must have been strengthened with how he felt about essentially being dead.

He picked up the pace and soon landed at the base of a large hill. He jogged up the side with the lit lantern held carefully in hand. Cole let out a frustrated groan when a sudden gust of wind extinguished and slowed down, simply trudging up the hillside. Great. He doesn’t have a lighter on him. Looks like he’ll just have to set out a dark lantern. Neither of them like that thought in the slightest. 

But both he and Coltrane got a massive surprise as Cole reached the top of the hill.

’’Thought you would never get here.’’ Kai called this out from his spot, holding a lit lantern as well.

Nya was holding another lantern and used her free hand to beckon Cole towards them. He slowly came forward as he looked around at his other friends.

Zane gave him a smile and a soft giggle seemed to escape from him. Jay looked a little more calm than usual and gave him a two fingered salute when he approached. Nya had a warm, gentle smile on her face and Kai had one arm around his sister protectively. Lloyd wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, simply messing around with the lantern in his hands.

Not one more word was uttered. The ninja didn’t need to say anything, and the nightmares didn’t have anything to say as the watched the lanterns float up and away.


	18. Down with the King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the serious storyline. 
> 
> We finally get to see what Garmadon’s role in the au is. Along with a bombshell of information for the nightmares.

Back with the others, things were not going as well as they hoped things would go. Lloyd was wide awake and no one really wanted to knock him out at the moment, though Nya had to show a particular amount of strength to keep Anya from cussing him out for everything he had done to Ninjago.

Though Nya was starting to consider letting her. She was getting fed up of the brat already.

“RELEASE ME!”

“Yelling at us to release you isn’t going to do anything.” Cole groaned and covered his ears with a nearby pillow. He was starting to understand why the other nightmares found him annoying but didn’t try to get on his bad side.

‘Now you know how we feel.’ An aggravated Coltrane groaned this from his mind, just as aggravated as the earth ninja. ‘We stayed far away from him for a reason.’

“I thought you just didn’t want to have to deal with Garmadon.” Cole muttered to himself.

That name seemed to have a sudden affect on everyone in the room.

Jay tensed up visibly, his eyes darting around to those around him. As if he was checking his back. Zane suddenly glitched and sparks flew out from his eye socket, which was disturbing to see and feel. Nya’s eyes widened and she almost looked like she was about to start trembling on the spot. 

But Lloyd had the most odd reaction of them all.

He looked terrified.

“What about my dad?! Where is he?!” The fear was still there. He couldn’t control it. He wanted to but just like Lloyd was struggling to keep him down the nightmare was struggling to hide the fear he had of his father.

Things had changed in that realm. 

Garmadon had changed as well.

He couldn’t let people know he was terrified of his own father.

The red eyes of the green ninja went around the room, filled with fear as he tried to search for some sort of answer from the others in the room. But none of them seemed to have an answer. None of them even seemed to be feeling judgmental for how he had reacted.

Odd. 

He was sure Nya- the Nya from his realm- would have killed to take this opportunity to tease him and have even the slightest leverage against him. 

But she didn’t. She looked sad. They all looked... sad. Genuinely so. Sympathetic, even. 

As his eyes went to Jay, the lightning ninja averted his own eyes. 

Cole tried to keep himself busy by seemingly whispering to Coltrane, or just faking it so he wouldn’t have to look at the green ninja.

Zane simply gave him a saddened look.

But Nya... Nya seemed to be the only one willing to say something. 

“Lloyd, I... I don’t know how to say this...”

“Just spit it out! Where is my dad?!” The fear in his voice was subsiding, worry taking its place. What happened to this world’s version of his father? He had access to Lloyd’s memories but he didn’t have the time or energy to take a look at them while also keeping the green ninja suppressed. 

“Lloyd, he... he sacrificed himself.” Nya sat down. “He isn’t alive in this realm anymore.”

The news was like a bombshell.

He didn’t know what to say or do.

Lloyd’s eyes started to dart around the room, thinking that this was a cruel joke to make him want to give up. But none of the ninja gave him any indication that this was even partially true. He still couldn’t wrap his head around what was going on so he snapped.

“Very funny! I get it; let’s all make the villain feel like a piece of shit!” He spat this out accusingly, mockingly. The exaggeration of ‘villain’ also helped show this. His glare went around the room, but the sad looks on the faces of the other originals didn’t change. He thought that they had to be good actors.

That HAD to explain it.

“This isn’t funny! Just tell me the truth! I know you all find it just so fucking hilarious when I lose it like this, but just tell me!” He raised his voice, tears now coming to his eyes. He couldn’t fathom the idea of his father being dead, not even after what he had seen of him. He was losing what little composure he had at the mere idea of that. 

“But it is true.” Zane spoke up now, coming a bit closer to him. “You can access Lloyd’s memories, correct? Our Lloyd had to watch as he was taken to a different realm, then have that realm destroyed. He is, indeed, gone.”

“...”

There was no response from the former prince. 

His head slowly fell to his chest, eyes staring down at the ground as he sorted through his original’s memories. Lloyd didn’t even fight against it, he brought the memories to the surface. He knew that when he found out the truth he could use a brief moment of weakness to come back to the others.

But that didn’t come. 

Not then.

When the memories finally came to his mind, and he watched them repeat over and over and over again, he finally snapped.

A bloodcurdling scream of mourning erupted from him as he started to break down.

From his earlier response of fear the others became very confused and worried.

He seemed... scared. Scared of his own father and now here he is, mourning him? What happened? Not even the other nightmares seemed to have any sort of explanation to this.

There was silence in the room, other than the wailing persisting in the corner. 

But after a few minutes, Cole finally swallowed his pride and went to sit down next to him. He was mourning. From what they knew, if they died, their nightmare was long gone as well. Which meant that since Garmadon was gone, his nightmare was as well. 

The nightmare just sobbed harder when he realized that this was so.


	19. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is most likely the darkest chapter. There are mentions of death and torture. If these things make you uncomfortable, I would suggest you say so in the comments and ask for a brief overview rather than reading this chapter. 
> 
> We finally get to see what really happened in the au, the portion that no one knew.

“Hey.” Coltrane finally took control of the situation, unable to bare the silence that fell over the room. No one else could bare it, they just didn’t know what to say. His original included. Cole remained quiet and let his nightmare take control for the moment. There was a moment where he needed to regain control over the body and flex his fingers to make sure he knew how to maneuver, but once that was done, he came over to the sobbing boy and slowly sat down beside him. 

“Lloyd. Come on, please look at me.”

The sobbing didn’t stop and he refused to look at him, his head still down.

“Lloyd, please. It’s... it’s me. It’s Cole. Cole from your realm. Just hear me out.”

There was still no reaction from him but Coltrane knew he had to just get to work with what he wanted to say. He had no idea how to say it but he decided to finally try to get it out anyway.

“Lloyd, listen. Garmadon... he wasn’t a good guy. Not after he took over. We all got to see how he was corrupted by his own power and anger. Lloyd, he hurt all of us just to make sure that we wouldn’t rise up again! I... I heard rumors that he even hurt you.”

The former prince visibly tensed from this. That was a raw nerve, it seemed.

“He acted like he cared about you but once he had Ninjago all he cared about was turning everything and everyone into his image; a twisted version of who we all were!” He was starting to go off on a rant, but it was all true. That was what had happened. In his eyes, at least. “We all wish we could have helped him be redeemed; we all wanted him to get past the venom in him. We saw that he could when you were a kid! But I don’t think he could once that power got to his head.”

“Lloyd, we’re sorry this had to happen. But for the safety of all of us and this realm, I think he is better off dead.”

“What... what did you just say?” The nightmare slowly looked up. The stains of tears were still fresh on his face but there was something else starting to build up in his eyes other than tears. It was unreadable at the moment though it was best to be wary. 

Coltrane thought he hit another nerve and that he needed to be more careful with what he was about to say. His own expression even showed how he knew he had messed up. Though he knew he couldn’t backtrack. He took a second to think about what he was going to say next before sighing.

“Lloyd, your dad hurt you. Hell, he hurt all of us.” There was a slow nod from Nya as he said this. That part was very much true. “He banished Kai, he turned me into... whatever I was. A snake thing. He killed Jay, he messed Zane up! He didn’t hurt Nya himself, but he technically did by messing with Kai!” 

Jay reaches over to set a hand on Nya’s shoulder, her eyes slowly becoming downcast.

“And you’re the only one here that could tell us what he did to you. We don’t know if he would have changed. We don’t even know if he could change! It’s probably best that we let sleeping dogs lie and let him stay dead.”

Lloyd laughed. 

Nightmare Lloyd laughed. 

It wasn’t a laugh of insanity. It wasn’t a laugh that indicated he had finally gone off the deep end. It was just... a laugh. 

And that was what had scared him the most. That was what scared all of the others the most.

“I... I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or a good thing...” 

“Lloyd, you’re being cryptic. Come on, you said you never wanted to be like Sensei Wu.” Cole and Coltrane were both getting tired of cryptic messages. From whoever they were from. “What are you talking about?!”

“Dad never laid a hand on me.” There was a sad and lopsided smile on his face, losing control over the body as he said this. “The pain was never physical.”

Lloyd’s look got distant and glassy. Nightmare didn’t have the words to explain what was going on at the moment. So he retreated back into the mind of his original, the both of them starting to talk to each other while the others were left baffled.

“Okay... what the actual hell just happened?” It was odd for these words to so calmly come out of Jay’s mouth. Clearly they weren’t exactly his own words. 

Everyone in the room was confused. What in Ninjago could have sparked the former ‘prince’ to say something like that? 

“It seems as though his emotions on his father are complicated, to say the least.” Zane spoke slowly. Trying to think this through. Even his own mind was whirring and whirling from this new information. “He mourns his death, but he seems to also fear him.”

“Why would he be scared of his own dad, though? Other than him hurting all of you.” Nya spoke next, looking around the room. “Anya’s been telling me this whole time that he’s been a suck up to him this entire time, always doing as told without hesitation. That he would do anything and everything to please him.” 

“Wait a second.” Cole suddenly snapped and looked straight at Nya. Cole was back in control. “Nightmare Lloyd always sucked up to his dad...? There... there could be other reasons for that.” Zane looked like he was catching on to what was being said and slowly nodded his head at this. 

“Perhaps... perhaps instead of wanting to please his father only out of love for him, he also did it out of fear of him... He mentioned the pain was never physical...”

There was a brief silence before everyone turned to Lloyd. His eyes were still glassy. 

“How bad was Garmadon, anyway?”

“You have no idea how bad my father was.” Lloyd was surprised to see his alternate version face to face again. And even more surprised to hear this. 

“Yeah, I don’t. Little reminder, you’ve kind of blocked out your memories so I don’t even have a clue how bad things were.” Yeah, that was a little passive aggressive but after being possessed for the second time in his life he had every right to be like this. 

“No, seriously, you have no idea how bad he was.” The nightmare stressed this. He turned to him, his eyes seeming to be watery. He looked like he was about to start crying. “I... I don’t know how to feel... I don’t know what to DO!” He covered his face and buried it into his knees. Was he shaking...? 

Lloyd reluctantly started to come over and crouched down by his side. “Can you tell me just how bad he was?” He waited for a few seconds before there was a meek shake of his head. Okay... this is getting weird. 

“I-I can’t tell you... but... I can show you...”

He finally opened his memories to his original. And the first one took him right to where the true nightmare finally began. 

“DAD NO!” The heart wrenching scream that escaped Lloyd’s lips shocked even him. He wasn’t making himself do that. Oh... right. Memory. But here he is, experiencing it in the flesh. It took a few seconds but soon enough Lloyd realized exactly why this shriek left him in the first place.

But he realized it too late when the horrifically familiar sound of a large zap of electricity filled the air. 

Lloyd’s eyes squeezed shut, and by the time they opened again he could feel his heart sinking to his stomach and his eyes brimming with tears.

“Jay...” 

Garmadon... Garmadon killed Jay. He killed him. Lloyd could feel himself sinking to his knees when a firm hand clamped itself onto his shoulder. 

“Son, listen to me. These ninja were the ones keeping us apart. If it weren’t for them you never would have needed to be the green ninja. We could have been together this whole time! Don’t mourn him, just join me.” 

Lloyd found himself slowly looking up at his father. He looked the same as he did back then during and before the final battle. The unnaturally dark skin, sharp teeth, and four arms. 

Lloyd has forgotten just how scary his dad used to look.

Lloyd felt his eyes narrowing as he violently ripped his shoulder out from his father’s grasp, causing him to look surprised. “I don’t wanna hear it. Dad, this isn’t okay! And you know it! These people are my friends, they’re also my family! Why would I ever side with you if you also hurt the other part of my family, of our family?!” 

There was a brief silence from Garmadon. 

When his eyes finally narrowed Lloyd felt a shudder rip down his spine. 

He has never seen his father this angry in his entire life. 

“Lloyd, you’re my son. I wasn’t just doing this for myself. I was doing it for us. This world turned on me when I was made into... into this. So to make things right everyone will see what it’s like to be turned into the monster you never wanted to be! And even if it takes killing your friends or making them monsters as well, I will make sure my son stays by my side this entire time. I’m not losing you again.”

Lloyd swallowed a bit. 

“Why don’t we continue on? I’m sure Zane wants to see you anyway.” 

And at that he tensed. Lloyd swallowed heavily and turned to glare at his father. “What are you going to do to him?”

“You’ll see. Now come along. I’m not going to leave the prince of this realm behind.” One hand came to rest on his back as he gently yet firmly started to guide his son to where Zane was being contained. 

Lloyd’s mind was starting to whirl. Was this actually still his nightmare? Everything about himself seemed normal. The only odd and off things were his father and what was going on around him. Lloyd wanted to turn to get a better look but since this was a memory he had no control. 

It took a few moments but it slowly dawned on Lloyd why this place seemed familiar. He had seen parts of it in his first dream when this all started. 

He could remember vividly peering into something to watch the fates of all of his friends in the nightmare realm, but in a more detached way.

Wait.

Lloyd felt his eyes widen in realization. 

Garmadon did all of those things. He killed Jay. And now, actually seeing it happen in his memories, he knows why!

Garmadon killed Jay to try to get this realm’s Lloyd on his side! 

Lloyd felt himself come to a stop and was forced to sit down before Garmadon vanished behind a door. 

“Dad! No, don’t touch Zane! Don’t touch him! He doesn’t deserve to die!” Lloyd could hear himself crying this out but it clearly wasn’t him speaking. 

Either Garmadon didn’t care or he just couldn’t hear him behind the glass. Garmadon walked straight towards Zane, who was fully operational but a little banged up at the moment. 

He opened the panel on his chest. 

Lloyd couldn’t hear Zane but he could see his eyes widen and how he started to move in an attempt to break free. 

But nothing was working.

Garmadon tried to touch his power source, only to be shocked. 

Pretty hard, seemingly.

Garmadon saw that this wouldn’t work. If he was going to kill him it would have to be another way. So, instead of just killing him off the bat, he decided to go a different route. 

Garmadon pulled on one wire. Zane’s eyes widened further and his resistance became more violent.

Lloyd couldn’t read lips all that well but he could recognize how he was yelling no, over and over and over again. 

A shudder ripped down his spine as Garmadon finally yanked his hand back sharply. Cutting the wire. There was another spark and a small spasm from Zane as his eyes changed color. The blue coloration was gone and replaced by red. 

But Garmadon wasn’t done.

He found another wire and did it again. And again. And with every cut wire Zane seemed to be getting more and more anxious, more and more desperate. He finally started screaming so loudly Lloyd could hear him from behind the glass. 

Lloyd desperately wanted to look away but he was in so much shock he couldn’t. 

Garmadon finally found himself finishing, but not before looking at two wires he had cut. He raised an eyebrow and put two of them together and another spark occurred. But by then, Zane was in shut down. Rebooting. 

He would never be the same by the time he got up. 

Lloyd realized this and could feel hot tears finally starting to roll down his face. They stung his eyes and his cheeks but he didn’t mind that pain. The pain he felt in his heart for his friend made this morning pale in comparison.

Garmadon got up, nodding to himself and dusting off his hands as he came back up to his son. He wasn’t surprised to see him crying like this and just grabbed his shoulder, making him get up and come along yet again. 

Once Lloyd was able to start thinking a bit more clearly he realized that there were only two people left now. He’s either going to go to Cole or Kai. He felt himself swallow dryly at this thought. He didn’t want to have to watch either of their ‘punishments’ for aiding him in fighting him. 

And neither could his nightmare version at this point in time, it seemed. 

Lloyd finally started to cry.

He was no longer letting tears run down silently. He was really crying.

And when he stopped in front of a cell with an unconscious Cole that was still writhing in agony he found himself crying harder and finally crumpling to his knees.

“This doesn’t have to continue, son.” Garmadon all of a sudden sounded gentle. Kind. Like how he used to be. He knelt down and gently hugged his son with two of his four arms, using the other two to wipe his tears. “Join me. Then your friends will never have to be hurt again. As long as you stay by my side they will never have to fear me for the rest of their lives. I won’t kill Zane, Cole, or Kai. But I need you to joi-“

“Fine.” Lloyd managed to interrupt him. His eyes still focused on the floor. “But there’s one more thing I want.”

“Yes? Anything.”

“Allow me to free Nya. She’s no threat to you- to us. Once she finds out Jay is dead and finds out about whatever you do to Kai, she might as well kill herself or go in a frenzy and get killed.” 

There was a moment of deliberation from Garmadon before he finally stood up and nodded. 

“It shall be done. But if she does become a threat-“

“If she becomes a threat I’ll see to it myself she is destroyed.” There it was. Lloyd could hear it in his voice. This was when it all really began. 

This was when he went from Lloyd, to Dark Lord Lloyd. To a nightmare. 

Lloyd slowly and reluctantly stood, wiping the tears from his eyes as he heard groaning and hissing coming from the cell he was standing next to.

“Come along, son. I’m sure you want to wave your last friend goodbye.”

Kai. 

Lloyd tensed. 

He always was like an older brother to him. What was Garmadon going to do to him?!

“Father, what are you going to do to him?! Don’t you owe him? Remember? He saved me from the serpentine and the volcano when I was still little!” There was desperation in his voice and for a second he did go back to his normal self. But Garmadon didn’t seem too perturbed. He thought for a few moments before nodding, agreeing with him. Fair enough. 

“I won’t kill him. I was only going to if you continued to refuse. But I can’t let him roam free. What do you suggest I do?”

“Offer him what you offered me- a chance to join you. He was always like a brother to me.” There was a bit of desperation in his voice. He didn’t want any of his friends to perish but if he could save even one of them to explain what really happened, he knew he could be more at peace.

There was yet another moment of deliberation and he slowly nodded his head. 

“Follow me.” Garmadon turned on his heel and started to walk, Lloyd hurriedly following him once again. There was no point in angering him again when he could possibly have another one of his friends dying because of it.

It took a few minutes but soon they were in what seemed to be the throne room. Lloyd barely had any time to look around before he heard the rattling of chains as Kai was dragged over. 

The fire ninja clearly had his element for a reason. There were bruises and scrapes all over him, from fighting back against the guards no doubt, and even now he was fighting tooth and nail to get free.

“Kai.” Garmadon spoke, but his voice wasn’t too cold. Since his son had reminded him Kai was the reason he was still here, it would be safe to assume his ill will towards the red ninja had decreased slightly. But with the icy look the fire master shot him told him his hatred for him had not died down in the slightest. “I’m going to give you a chance. You may have trained my son to fight me, but you also took care of him and saved his life on a few occasions. For this I would like to offer you a chance to be by my side. Work for me. Help me. I’m certain I could find something for you to do.” Kai kept his mouth shut, still glaring him down. “Join me, Kai. There’s no need for you to fight anymore. You’ve lost. But I’m allowing you a second chance.”

“Never.” Kai spat at him. “I would never join you! I won’t help you turn this place into your image! I’ll fight you every day until my dying breath- and so will everyone else!”

“Are you willing to face the consequences of your actions, the-?”

“I don’t care what you do to me. Let me be a martyr! I’ll die protecting Ninjago!”

“Oh, you’re not going to die.” There was a frightening chuckle after that. 

Lloyd could see a stone warrior coming in with a pot of tea in his hands. He could feel himself pale ever so slightly as his father dad continued to speak.

“You’re simply going to learn how I felt for years. Trapped in the underworld.”

Kai’s eyes widened. He finally realized Lloyd standing there and quickly turned to him, expecting him to do something. “No, no! Come on! Lloyd, please, don’t just let this happen!”

There was nothing else he could do. Lloyd wanted to save him. But, technically, he already had. By joining his father he was saving his, Cole’s, and Zane’s lives, even if he couldn’t save Jay’s life or Zane’s sanity. 

Lloyd looked at him, then he couldn’t look any more. He looked straight down. He couldn’t even see the horrified pain in his eyes as he stared down at his shoes.

Lloyd could hear the portal open.

He could hear the chains rattle as Kai was picked up by his arms.

His pleads and begs as he struggled against the warriors grated on his brain.

The chains were unlocked with a clank.

And after a scream, Kai was gone. 

Lloyd could feel the hot tears trickling down his cheeks once again as things started to fade to black, the memories finally giving way to where Nightmare Lloyd was waiting for him. 

“That explains everything.” Lloyd could only say this as he noticed the Nightmare was now facing him instead of looking back. It was obvious he was distraught- from the memories and something else, it appeared.

“Lloyd, you... you’re a lot wiser than I am. You’ve done so much more in your life than I could dream of. I... I don’t know what to do.” He gave him his full attention, looking rather pitiful with the tears still in his eyes. 

Lloyd came over and hesitantly sat down beside him. He rested a hand on his shoulder. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I’m so confused.” He pressed his hand against his head and set his chin on his knees, staring straight ahead with worried eyes. 

“You don’t know what to think about your dad’s death?” 

The meek nod made Lloyd sigh.

“I don’t blame you. He clearly hurt you and the others more than I could ever imagine. But... he’s still your dad. The man you love more than anything. I wouldn’t know what to do if my dad came back entirely evil. I can only imagine how hard it was for you. And now that he’s dead... you don’t know how to feel about him. And you don’t know what to do.” The Nightmare meekly nodded in agreement to all of this once more. 

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you one thing; you don’t have to be the bad guy anymore. You’re free.”

The Nightmare tensed. He... he didn't have to be the bad guy anymore. He didn’t have to be evil. He didn’t have to act like this anymore. This seemed to confuse him more than anything else. 

“I don’t think I’m ready to hear this.” This whisper barely left his lips, which caused his original to slowly nod his head. 

“I understand. Take your time.”

“Guys, guys! Look! He’s coming to!” Jay quickly grabbed Cole and lightly shook him as he said this, the others looking straight to Lloyd in hope as he finally started to wake up.

“It’s been an hour, what in the world were they doing in there?!” Zane sounded concerned as Lloyd’s ruby red eyes finally reopened. There was clearly an air of disappointment as the reason for this registered with everyone in the room.

But one thing didn’t register.

Lloyd seemed... scared. 

Why?

“Lloyd...?”

His eyes widened as Nya spoke to him. He quickly turned to her and tried to move back. Wait a second. He’s on a bed. He had been untied from the chair. Lloyd got up and started to back up, making the others all tense.

“Lloyd, come on, bud. You need to get back in bed. You’re clearly still not feeling so good.” Cole tried to say this soothingly, but this only seemed to make him more scared. Lloyd kept backing away. 

And soon he backed away right into a window.

Everyone tensed once more.

“Lloyd... come on, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re okay. You’re safe here with us.” Nya tried to say this softly and sweetly but Lloyd just didn’t seem to be having it. He was scared. And nothing that they could say would stop him from being scared at the moment. 

Lloyd reached back with one hand.

Jay’s hands lit up with electricity.

He managed to unlock the window with a barely audible click.

Nya summoned water from the air.

Lloyd formed a ball of energy with his hand. 

Nothing could be said when a ball of static water went flying at him, only for the nightmare to smash the window with his energy and escape, confusion and fright clouding his thoughts and hiding him from the advice of his original.


	20. A Nightmarish Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nya and Anya have some one on one time that brings about a realization that changes everything the other nightmares knew about their own demise.
> 
> There are mentions of ocs. Only one belongs to me. The other two belong to my friends on Quotev.

“He... he left.” The shocked words leaving Cole’s mouth reflected the confusion of the entire room. “He just up and left.” 

As he said that, Nya made her way over to the window, not even seeing footprints in the sand. Coming to the desert was a good idea. They were pretty far from Ninjago, thankfully. 

With everything that was going on everyone thought it best that the ninja separated themselves from Ninjago for a little while. In case of the ‘worst case scenario’.

Looks like the ‘worst case scenario’ was starting to become a reality.

“Now we’re missing Kai and Lloyd.” Cole groaned in frustration and started to rub his face at this. 

“We know that.” A sudden, snappy response from the lightning ninja made it unclear who was in control. “No Kai, no Lloyd, no Emperor Kai and no ‘Dark Lord’ Lloyd. We need to find them. Before they do something they regret.”

With the very straightforward statement it became obvious which one was in control. 

“But what can we do? There are no footprints!” Nya pointed this out from her stance near the window.

“Neither of them had any technology on them. I could not track them from where we are.” Zane spoke up to regretfully inform the others of this.

“We might have to just warn the city and head out to look for them ourselves.” Cole reluctantly grumbled. 

“That’s the first thing we gotta do.” Nya’s voice became grim. She straightened up before letting a heavy exhale leave her. 

This wasn’t exactly THE worst case scenario. Zane, Cole, and Jay are all harmless in the situations they are in. In fact, they were going to be of use in bringing the two more dangerous ninja back! Not to mention they also had Anya, who knew a thing or two about the nightmares. 

“I am going to go and warn the police commissioner.” Zane spoke up, bringing Nya back to the real world as he left the room.

“I’ll call Mystake. She can make sure the helmet and any traveler’s tea are both well hidden.” Cole walked out at this as well, a heavy sigh and a shake of his head following. 

“I’m just going to talk to Sensei about this.” 

Nya watched as the three remaining, the three original, ninja left the room. It was ironically poetic how the three of them and Nya, the last ninja to join the team, were the ones left of the team with their minds intact.

Well, mostly intact, in Zane’s case.

Once the three left, Nya was left in the room by herself. She remained there for a second before turning to the door, walking out. Heading to the deck. That seemed to be a good go-to spot when it came to thinking, and especially thinking out loud.

Anya was waiting for her to get settled when she got to the deck. It was pretty obvious mentally that she wanted to speak to her about all of this. What just happened was a lot to swallow, including for her. Why did Lloyd act like that? That was not the cold, bratty, annoyance of a ‘dark lord’ that she knew. In fact...

That reminded her more of a scared, wounded animal than one of the most powerful and influential nightmares other than Garmadon himself.

“Anya.”

Nya’s clear voice ringing out in her own head and out and in the open brought Anya back to reality. This was serious. And she needed to focus.

“Anya, did you or your rebellion ever have any spies watching your Lloyd or any of the others?”

/We did not have any spies.\ Anya scoffed slightly at the mere thought, shaking her head.

Wait. Shaking her head? Nya could have sworn she knew Anya was shaking her head. But... she was a voice in her head. How could she know she was shaking her head? Sheer imagination, Anya actually having the intention of doing so...? 

/By the time the thought even crossed our minds, there was no one, and yes, I mean no one, who was ready or willing to go in and do any sort of spying. Things were too dangerous. And they remained too dangerous for the entire time our realm existed.\

“Who all was in the rebellion? Surely there was someone who would’ve been willing to do something! Spying to find a weak spot could have brought in a lot of good information!” Nya groaned softly and ran her fingers through her hair. Surely, there had to be some who would have agreed to help in this way! 

/There were a few of us who were willing to do that, but those of us who were willing were immediately shot down by the others. Saying that those who were going to go either knew too much in case they were caught, or were otherwise too valuable.\ Anya reflected Nya’s slight tone of annoyance at the memory. Anya was very much wishing she knew that information. It would have been useful. Then she could have done something! But it’s too late now. /I was more than happy to put on some sort of disguise and get to it, but everyone agreed that I would be recognized. Not to mention the information I had and the leadership role I had made me ‘too valuable to lose’. They could have gone on without me, but no... There was also a girl named... what was it? Veronica? Virginia... no, Victoria! Yeah! She was an informant of ours, but she never got close enough. I wouldn’t call her a spy because of that. Something would always come up.\

“That’s two people. Can you tell me some others? I know Dareth was in the rebellion. So was Morro...? How did that happen? And a blonde girl. She looked very, very sad and distressed when I saw her in that dream you warned me with.”

/Oh, of course. Dareth was in the rebellion, but he didn’t do much. Morro is... a long story.\ Anya’s laugh confused Nya, knowing what happened in this realm with him. /That girl’s name is Harumi. She is the princess of Ninjago, adopted daughter of the emperor and the empress. Garmadon had them killed, so when reconstruction was planned to happen, Harumi would be the one to take control from me. She was likely more the face of the rebellion than I was. There was also Ronin, Dr. Saunders, many of the elemental masters, a girl named Skylor, a girl named Alyssa, Victoria as I previously mentioned, someone else named Keira, Cyrus Borg, some very strange friends of Harumi’s...\

“What all did you guys do in the rebellion, anyway? What did everyone do? Fighting the stone army is an impossible task- the others were already taken out of the picture, so what could you guys do?”

/Quite a bit, actually.\ The slight hint of pride made Nya raise an eyebrow. /Alyssa, for example, was a guard. A defendant. She kept an eye on the outside of the base to make sure that no one would be coming in that wasn’t supposed to be coming in. We had informants like Victoria, who would get into contact with people, like suppliers, and generally helped with information on people- whether they be good or bad. We had some spies- but not for Lloyd and Garmadon. One girl, Keira, kept an eye on my brother from time to time.\ There was a brief pause. /Technically she was a spy, I could see someone making an argument for it. Mystake, a supplier of ours, kept some tomorrow’s tea in stock so she could check in on him. Though that didn’t happen often.\ There was a soft sigh at this. Nya could tell that Anya still cared about her brother, though there were hard feelings still. 

Seeing how he acted, she didn’t exactly blame her.

/We had various different people who would give us supplies, and while some of these were to take care of ourselves and others, they were also to sabotage Dark Lord Lloyd and Garmadon. Tear them down politically and socially. We wanted to make it as hard as possible to control Ninjago and it’s people. That was our main goal. At least temporarily. We were mainly focused on trying to find ways to take out the stone army and to keep Coltrane and InZane at bay, just to make sure no one would be hurt anymore.\ There was a shaky sigh. /We weren’t just rebelling. We were trying to survive and trying to save lives.\ 

“I... I see.” Nya understood a bit more, now. The rebellion was a lot more than just a rebellion. It was an aid to others. It was a light of hope that did various different things. 

“But... back to Lloyd and Garmadon. Did you ever interact with Lloyd since... since this all started? Did you ever see him or even have the chance to talk to him? At all...?”

Anya scoffed. There was a hint of disgust as she started to speak again.

/Once. There was one time. I was caught. This was the first and the only time when Lloyd ever caught me. Though, ironically, it seemed to be his mission as soon as I started making trouble for him and his dad.\ A dark, hurt laugh, at that. 

“Did you notice anything weird? Anything out of the ordinary?” 

/Well, he was a brat. Imagine when we met Lloyd as a kid. Now, take that and make it a hundred times worse where he now has no problem having people killed, and doesn’t even mind killing people himself to stay on his dad’s good side.\ 

There was a bit of a shudder at that.

/Exactly. And guess what? He was a brat. To my face. Gloating over finally getting me, of knowing all my secrets since I was foolish enough to trust him with them when we were close. Before the dark island. He talked about how proud his dad would be. How happy he would be that I was no longer a threat.\

“That’s great to hear. Really.” The impatient sarcasm from Nya made Anya raise an eyebrow. “But. Did you notice anything, ANYTHING, weird?! There had to have been something at some point. Did anyone else interact with Lloyd that we would be able to talk to?! There had to be someone!”

/Nya. Calm down. I wasn’t finished. But the only weird thing, at least to me, is how fast he became a brat. How quickly he turned on us. On us all. After all that time...\ A sigh of pain escaped at that. It was a hard topic for her to talk about. Lloyd was like her little brother. For both Nya and Anya. /Why would he be like that? And why would his personality change so quickly?\

“Looks like that question hasn’t changed.” Nya groaned, smacking her head on the banister of the ship. 

/My thoughts exactly.\

“Anya. Please. Think back on that one time you saw him. Think hard. Was there anything weird? Odd? Off, out of the ordinary, conspicuous?” 

There was a silence.

She was thinking.

/... There was one thing that always bothered me.\

“What was it?”

/Why was I released? In the very beginning. When Garmadon first took over. A guard told me that I was released on orders of Prince Lloyd. But... knowing how much his father wanted anyone who would defy him out of the way, why would Garmadon listen to him to have me released? Lloyd knows better. He should have known that I would be a threat to Garmadon. Not to mention... why would he spare me, but not Kai? Kai, the fire ninja, the ninja who saved Lloyd’s life several times. Why would he save me, but not Kai...?\

Those... were all very good questions. Nya didn’t answer. She needed to think. She kept her head down and shut her eyes, thinking back on all the pieces of the puzzle that they had. There weren’t all that many. They know what happened to Kai, Cole, Jay, Zane, and herself in that realm. They don’t know what happened to Lloyd. He wouldn’t open up about it. Jay was killed. Zane was forced to go insane. Cole was painfully turned into a monster. And Kai was banished. Nya... was saved. 

“Wait.” Nya’s eyes widened and she suddenly popped up. Those punishments seemingly decreased in severity, for some reason. But... why? Why, of all people, would Jay be killed? Why would Zane be the one to go insane? Why wouldn’t Garmadon just kill them all? As Anya said, Garmadon wanted any threats to be out of the way. Why let three of them still roam around? 

“Do you know what happened to Lloyd?” 

/No. No one knows. Anyone who ever asked during interrogation, some sent us letters before they were executed, were swiftly ended. Sometimes the letters wouldn’t get to us until months later since they never got the time to properly send it. We’re pretty sure Lloyd killed them, probably in a fit of rage. We always thought that he would kill anyone for daring to assume his father would do something to him.\

There was a pause.

“What if that’s exactly what happened?” 

/What... what do you mean, Nya?\ The concern and the slight sharpness to her tone prompted Nya to speak up quickly.

“That would explain it. That would explain so much!”

/What does?! What did?! Nya, your mind is too crowded! Focus! Tell me!\

“Anya! It all makes sense! Lloyd had that sharp turn in personality because Garmadon did do something to him! And he changed to appease him! He let you go because he does care about you, but to appease his father, he had to go after you when you became trouble! That would explain why Lloyd looked scared of him- he did something to him! But Lloyd clung onto his dad because, other than you and Misako, he then had no one left!” 

/My... my god. You might be onto something, here. Now that I think of it... it was too easy escaping him the first time.\ The thought of the ‘prince of brats’ having released her, not for a game of cat and mouse, but as a last act of mercy as a friend was haunting, to say the least. /He taunted me, he gloated, but... but one time, when his father came in suddenly... I swear, now that I think of it, he jumped. He brushed it off as being startled... We all called him a coward in the base for it. I... I remember the fear in his eyes. But... it might be because he was scared of his own father!\ The sound of horrified realization in her voice sent shivers up and down Nya’s spine. /But what did you mean about the others?\

“Anya, there was a pattern. Their, I mean... your punishments got less and less bad. To the point you were freed. What if... this sounds like a long shot. But what if Garmadon broke Lloyd by breaking down those who he had come to love almost more than him? Lloyd must’ve broke down at some point. Probably after Zane and or Cole. Maybe even right after Jay. Garmadon spared both you and Kai. But you were spared from any sort of punishment. Lloyd must have broken at that.” Nya’s voice broke at the end. 

The thought of the younger, admittedly more naive Lloyd breaking upon seeing his friends being killed and tortured by his own father’s command was heavy. She had to swallow hard. 

/Oh my god.\ Nya might be on to something. It kind of made sense. The occasional fear, his reluctance to face head on battles, how he didn’t really interact with the other nightmares... If Nya was anywhere close to right, there were a lot of issues that were going to be needed to be addressed.

“Anya. If that’s right... maybe he ran because he was scared of us. Scared of what we would do after all he had done for his father.”

“For good reason. He fucked all of us over.” The dry laugh of a now familiar voice nearly made Nya jump. She quickly turned to see Jay walking over, his neutral look and dry tone telling her right away who was in control. And the soft wince from him told her that Jay was probably chewing him out for cursing. 

“Well... maybe, maybe not. He might’ve actually... kinda... tried to save your lives and fucked over his own life and everyone else’s lives on accident, instead?” How was Nya supposed to explain this to him? Could she? Should she hand things over to Anya to let her explain, since she knew him better and would probably know how to handle this whole situation better...? Maybe she should just go for it.

The red-head paused. He took a second, then leaned on the banister of the flying ship as well before slowly turning to look at her. “Explain?”

“Okay. You’re probably going to think we’re both crazy for this. But... we think we figured it out. Lloyd was scared when we mentioned his father because, maybe... maybe Garmadon did something to him. And maybe that something was hurting the rest of you guys. We are all family to Lloyd, everyone knows this. That would explain why you were killed, but no one else was. You were the first to go.”

“I... I was the first to go.” The normal monotone voice of his did not suit the look of complete shock on his face. He never told anyone. He didn’t want anyone to know! 

Nya gave a nod, lips pursed into a thin line at this. That helped prove part of her theory. “When looking at the punishments of everyone else, things slowly got less and less bad. To the point that Anya got out scot free initially. To the point she wasn’t even hunted down until she became a problem. That would also explain why Lloyd was jumpy and scared around Anya when Garmadon came in unexpectedly.”

“That’s when the rebellion first started calling him a coward. I remember hearing about it.” 

“Exactly. It might not have been cowardice that made him act like that. Jay, this explains so much. That’s why he didn’t want to fight the rebels himself. That’s why he let me go the first time he caught me. That’s why he ran out when he snapped out of it! He’s scared of us now, too! He’s scared of what we’re going to do to him for this whole mess! Now that Garmadon’s out of the way, he has no reason to keep a mask on. But without his mask, we can get to him!”

“And anyone with a personal vendetta against him could be after him right now.” Deadbolt’s voice all of a sudden got even more serious than normal. His eyes were narrowed, too. 

“You’re right. But, what is that supposed to-?”

Deadbolt grabbed Anya by the chin and made her turn to look in the distance. There was a large fire blazing, and hints of green could be seen even from where they were on the Bounty.

The two looked to each other.

“Just like old times?”

“Just like old times. Let’s round up the dumbasses. We’ve got work to do.”


	21. Day of the Departed Special Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the Halloween special for 2019. Once again, this is not fully canon. Another mention of my oc, Victoria.

Lloyd woke up with a headache. 

Nowadays, Lloyd only wakes up with a headache for specific reasons. And it’s pretty easy to discern when it’ll be which one. Some days, he just has a headache. There’s nothing more to it, he just has one. Some days, it’s the result of a massive fight where he over exerted himself and or his powers. 

And some days, it’s because a certain voice in his head is throwing a tantrum.

“Ugh... what is it this time?” Lloyd looked at the time, rubbing his eyes as he flopped back on the bed despite the pain it brought him. Three in the morning. He still had an hour and a half before he needed to be up, why was this voice waking him at this hour?

...

“I know there’s a reason. Tell me.”

There was still no response even as the headache worsened. Ugh, he was really throwing a tantrum this time around. Lloyd buried his palms into his shut eyes, as if he was trying to reach in to shake the source of the voice in his head.

“What do you want?! Ugh! It’s three in the morning, let me sleep! It’s Day of the Departed, I want to be awake enough to be able to go and be with mom today!”

The silence persisted, but in the back of Lloyd’s head he could feel the narrowed eyes staring him down with anger.

“What? Still have a grudge against mom?”

You damn well know it’s not that!

“Then what is it? I want to sleep!”

And I don’t want you to sleep. 

“Why are you always so difficult?” Lloyd groaned and propped himself up on a pillow. He was keeping himself to a whisper, not wanting to end up bothering anyone else at this hour in the morning. “Stop being petty. What is it? I know when something’s up. You aren’t really that good about hiding stuff from me.”

The silence, this time around, clearly came from a place of pettiness. 

Lloyd sighed, rubbing his face as he thought of a better way to put that. 

“Something is bothering you. Look, if this is going to work out in any way, we have to share what we’re thinking. I get it. You don’t want to. But I’m you, I’ll probably get what you’re thinking more than anyone else would. So just tell me.”

If he had an actual form he probably would’ve just grabbed a chair to sit down and tell him. Lloyd could vividly see this occurring in his mind, but in actuality he could simply feel his eyes on him as he started to speak.

Do we have to go and do anything for Day of the Departed? I... would prefer to stay here.

“I have to light a lantern for my father and uncle. If this is about mom, I get it, but I’m not going to stop spending time with her. I know she made mistakes-“

It’s not that. Lloyd no longer felt his eyes on him. And in his mind’s eye, he was looking away entirely. 

“Then what is it, Dark Prince?”

The Day of the Departed is not my favorite day. Could you go and spend time with your girlfriend, set aside only an hour for mom, whatever it takes. I just need to be alone today.

Lloyd was quiet for a moment. Today was a day of memory. Remembrance. Showing love for those who have passed. Why in the realms would he have a problem with today of all days? 

“Why?”

Does it really matter? I don’t want to talk about it.

“We’ve talked about this. Whatever it is about your past, it’s behind you. You can talk to me. There’s no punishment. I’m not going to raise my voice. It’s okay. You can speak your mind safely. Your dad isn’t here.”

The silence that followed was deafening. 

You know dad killed Uncle Wu in my timeline, right?

Lloyd let out a soft exhale. He wasn’t surprised to hear that, at least. “No, but I know now.”

Mom was almost killed in an accident. 

Lloyd nodded slowly.

Jay was the first person to die. 

“I know.”

I... I lost count of how many rebels were killed. 

Lloyd inhaled to speak.

Lloyd. I killed some of them. Lloyd, I killed some with my own hands. Just to please my damn father. 

“Nightmare, stop. Now.” Lloyd could hear how his voice started to shake with anger and fear. He sat up fully now, as if he was about to embrace someone right beside him. “Stop. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Okay, exhale.” 

He could hear him doing so.

“There. Okay. Now, spit it out. Why-“

I’m the reason why this whole thing happened in the first place.

His voice shook. 

I’m the reason why Jay died- I’m the reason why Kai was banished. Why Zane was messed up. Why Cole was turned into a snake person and why Nya had to do what she did.

He shook.

Lloyd this is my fault! And damn it the last thing I want is an entire holiday based around reminding me that the blood of so many people is on MY HEAD!

The voice echoed in Lloyd’s head, the scream bringing a shiver up his spine. When the echoing finally died, all that rang in his ears was the heavy breathing that came after something like that.

“Lloyd, listen to me.” His voice was gentle. Calm. Hell. He’d even call it sweet. “Day of the Departed is not a mockery of what you went through. It’s a day of love for those who have passed on. I get what you feel, I understand. You don’t have to participate on this Day of the Departed. But I’ll make some time with V, I’ll set some time aside for Mom. But... I think we need some time for ourselves, too.”

The soft sniffle only brought out a sad laugh.

“How about this. After practice, we go and hang out with V. Whenever that’s done we go meditate. Right before nightfall we go see mom, then we go to a place I know. It’s a nice hill. It’s got a beautiful view of the city. Only the other ninja know it.”

A soft ‘mm hm’ only reminded him further of how much he especially got his childhood robbed from him.

“If the others end up coming, I’ll let you call the shots. If you need a moment just say so.”

What did I do to deserve a second chance like this...?

“You didn’t get this because you deserved it.” Lloyd leaned back in bed, shutting his eyes for a moment. Focusing more on the face of his nightmare counterpart in his mind. “You just got it. Unless you have anything else you want to say while I’m awake, I want to sleep.”

One more thing. Lloyd, could you... 

“Could I what?

A pause. Then,

Could you light a lantern for me? For... for everyone I ended up hurting?

“Of course. Good night.”

Good night.   
Sweet Dreams.


	22. Daydreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kaiser and Nightmare Lloyd have a face off.

Run.

That was the only thing running through his head as he ran. His feet hitting the sand and slipping every once in a while. There was no wind whipping the sand around, which was a relief. It would’ve gone into his eyes. He didn’t need anything else to make him cry. There were already tears of confusion and anger and fear streaming down his face. 

Run, run and don’t look back. 

But why? Why would he run? Yes, he was the enemy. But the others weren’t ones to senselessly start fights. This was still Lloyd. This was still Lloyd’s body. Like with Morro, they couldn’t hurt him without hurting the Lloyd they know and love, too. What did he expect?

Run.

Nothing. Nothing but that damn word repeating in his mind over and over again. Run, run, run. But why?

“STOP!” Lloyd finally raised his voice, the loud cry echoing through his mind just as much as that other word had. His body obeyed him and the echoing of the first words finally faded. He had to stop and catch his breath, wipe the tears from his eyes. He could feel the terror in the back of his mind. The terror and confusion that didn’t belong to him.

It belonged to the Nightmare inside him.

“We... we need to talk.” He took a few seconds to pant this out loud, gritting his teeth. He could feel the turmoil like it was his own. He could feel all the pain and self hatred burning him from the inside out. 

I can’t, Lloyd. I can’t. I can’t.

“Stop. I swear... Listen to me. I know you’re not ready to talk about your dad. I know you’re not ready to talk about what he did to you and how that’s affected you. But, dammit, running away isn’t going to solve anything!” Lloyd fell onto his knees, taking some time to breath deeply. The emotional turmoil and sudden burst of energy in this hot weather- while he is still wearing thick pajamas- wasn’t doing him any favors. 

They were going to do something. I could tell! His breathing was shaky and so was his voice. Didn’t you see?! Nya’s hands, they had water! Jay’s were lighting up with electricity! They were going to kill me- they were going to kill you! You don’t understand-

“No, I don’t think you understand. They don’t know the truth.” Lloyd tenderly put a hand on his temple. His head hurt. “They don’t know what you showed me. They. Don’t. Know. All they know is the bratty excuse of a dark lord who served his father. They don’t know the green ninja who did his best to save his friends. We have to go back. Let me keep control. I can explain, I can show them the truth.”

No one will buy it. As far as they’re concerned, I still am that bratty excuse of a prince. A pained, dry laugh echoed through Lloyd’s head. I still am the son of the dark lord. The traitor. You saw it with your own two eyes, they were going to electrocute us!

“You don’t know my friends the way I do. And I think you don’t understand your former friends, either.” Lloyd managed to stand up taller. Aware of the dull pain throbbing in his head. “We have to explain. We have to show them to truth. This isn’t all your fault. You saved Kai. You saved his life, and you saved Nya’s, and Cole’s, and Zane’s. You couldn’t save Jay. There were so many things out of your control, stop-“

Stop beating myself up for it? Lloyd, I’m the reason why the rebellion exists. I’m the reason why Coletrane and InZane roamed undeterred. I’m the reason why my Nya had to take up the reigns. Lloyd all of this is my fault. If I had just been stronger, if I had just killed my father before... before... The way his voice cracked at that, the mere thought haunting him still, made goosebumps rise up on Lloyd in spite of the heat. Before this all started... I could’ve saved them. I could’ve saved them all. But I didn’t. I was selfish. I went with my father. The man I idolized above all else. The man that I loved. The man that helped me become a monster.

“You couldn’t control your father. Lloyd. You couldn’t control destiny, or fate. You couldn’t control your love for him and you couldn’t control what happened to the others. There were so many things that were out of your hands. You couldn’t have done anything more than what you did. Especially when your father watched every move you made.” Now the Nightmare was the vulnerable one. He could see glimpses of memories flashing through his head. Not like a coma or a deep sleep in which odd dreams occurred. No, he was wide awake. And the truth was finally being revealed to him in full. 

“You were controlled, weren’t you?” 

A part of him stiffened.

“He kept a close eye on you for a while. You had to put up a front.”

I was never fake with my father.

“But you had to do something so he didn’t get suspicious. You couldn’t let him hurt your friends again.” Lloyd felt like he was starting to understand. But for some reason he really was getting hot. “You... you were a brat. But you got lost in your cover.”

There was a brief silence after that. 

You’re overheating. 

“You’re hiding behind a mask.” But he was right. He was overheating. Damn it, why did he feel so hot?! The only time he felt waves of heat berating him this badly was the last time Kai lost his temper really badly. 

At this thought, the nightmare took back control of the body.

He was fuming.

The speck of bright green in the desert was no mirage. He could tell just who and what that was. The color made it obvious. 

After all these years, he had a clear shot at revenge.

But what of his plan? What of getting on his original’s good side, then Lloyd’s good side to ensure he wouldn’t be sent to the Underworld on his orders? 

Fuck the plan.

Kaiser had a clear shot of revenge and no one was in his way.

At long last, he could be free, and he could get payback on the one person who could’ve stopped this all.

Kai felt his eyes widening. These thoughts were blaring in his mind loud and clear. 

His feet started to move.

His eyes were narrowed.

Kai could even feel the heat that was starting to radiate off of him in rage. He had to take control. He had to get back into the pilot’s seat, get as far away from Lloyd as possible.

Kaiser was going to kill him.

All of those years in the darkness. All of those years in the cold. All of those were his fault. Kai had been there by his side, he was like his brother. He saved his life! But when it came time to return the favor, the only thing the coward did was avoid eye contact.

The temperature increased. 

Kai always did fine in the heat. Even the cold he could sustain himself decently. But the heat that was escaping his body worried him. The last time he did this Jay fainted from the heat. The others can’t handle it as well as he can.

And Lloyd is no exception. 

He’s better than Jay, that’s for sure.

But as memories coursed through Kaiser’s mind the heat only steadily rose around him.

Lloyd was in sight. He was clearly being affected by the heat. Kai always knew when he was getting tired. Kaiser knew it, too. And that was not a good thing. 

They were only a few yards away from each other. Lloyd suddenly stopped moving. Kaiser didn’t.

Lloyd slowly straightened up, inhaling deeply before looking straight at him.

“Brat.”

“Is this how you greet a friend?”

“Is that how you treat a friend? Allowing your dad to banish me to another realm after all that happened?!”

“He offered you a chance to save yourself and join him.”

“Unlike you, I upheld my morals.”

Lloyd laughed dryly.

“I don’t think Nya would agree with that. Or any of the skulkins under you.”

“Leave my sister out of this.”

“I tried to. She’s the one who got involved. I freed her, you know. I joined my dad, yes. But I was able to free someone, so I freed her.” He was looking at his nails. Did he really not care?

Why were Lloyd’s hands shaking?

Kaiser’s body would have burned anyone that touched him. Steam was practically coming out of his ears. “You freed her and left me to rot?”

“No. I freed her and gave you a chance to stay with me. You refused. Then Nya went down to free you and you burned her eye. She’s blind in that eye now, by the way. It’s a pretty pale blue, almost white. Reminds me of someone.”

Why the hell was he so calm?! Kai couldn’t believe his eyes or ears, and neither could Kaiser. 

Neither of the dumbasses realized he was shaking.

But now Kaiser was shaking. With anger. 

“You’re the reason why she was burned.”

“Don't pin this on me, fire boy. You’re the only one to blame. My father banished you. Not me. I saved Nya but you burned her.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Make me.”

Kai’s eyes widened again. Lloyd’s arms spread out. He could tell he was shaking, now. But his eyes were steely. 

As if he was steeling himself for whatever it was Kaiser would throw at him. 

And Kaiser threw out everything.

A clash of fire and power resulted in a light show of orange, red, and green, the battle for power on this shifting battlefield ensuing. Lloyd didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to make his original pay for his sins. But in the end he would finally get the punishment he deserved for everything he did to Ninjago. He would get the punishment he needed for hurting all of his friends.

He would get the punishment he needed from one of the people he had hurt the most.

Kaiser was finally going to get his revenge. It was basically served on a platter. As much as Nightmare was putting up that bratty, snarky front, he knew he was tired. He was weak. The heat he had emitted had evaporated the tears from earlier, and apparently it also evaporated his ability to voice his true thoughts. 

The flames rose higher.

The green power did so in return. 

The two nightmares in control of the bodies of others had narrowed eyes, Kaiser baring his teeth in anger and focus while the Dark Prince was simply gritting his teeth.

In their focus, neither of them saw the large bubble of water heading straight towards them.

The water bubble crashed on the both of them, and the high rising flames from Kaiser were extinguished. 

His hair was also ruined.

Lloyd was left sputtering but grateful for the sudden dousing. He had been burning up, so the icy attack was more welcome than it was hated.

However, the familiar sound of crackling electricity and the slight rumble of the earth were not as welcome.

Kaiser groaned and tried to sit up, only to be faced with a very unhappy Nya and Jay. The water was already evaporating as his anger returned, only for Nya’s eyes to narrow.

“Cool it, Kai. You missed a lot.”

“I don’t care-“

“Either you come with us without any funny business or I leave a mark. Your choice.” The sudden snap from Jay, who clearly wasn’t himself (quite literally), shut him up. The temperature started to drop again.

Lloyd was coughing out some water when Cole and Zane grabbed his arms and got him to his feet. The two wrapped his arms around their necks, Zane looking to him in concern.

“We need to get them home, now.” Zane reported this back to Jay and Nya, who were using vengestone to make sure the former emperor wouldn’t heat things up again. Nya took a deep breath, sighing out as she looked between the two. It was a pathetic sight, in reality. But a part of her found some peace in it. Here are two of the most powerful of the nightmares. One in shackles, and the other being supported by the friends he had lost. 

“Lloyd, Kai. Let’s go home.”


	23. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The happy ending. The truth comes out and healing can finally begin.

It was a good thing precautions were taken. Zane didn’t want to know what would’ve happened if those two made it to the city on their own and had their confrontation there. Someone could’ve gotten hurt, or killed. 

No one wanted that. Not even that annoying voice in his head. 

“He’s still really warm.” Zane was snapped out of his thoughts when Cole spoke, their friend/prisoner now mostly limp. “Kai really did a number on him.”

“We all know Kai never would have done this to Lloyd on purpose.”

“And I’m not saying Kai was the one who did this to him. We need to cool him down. He might’ve overexerted his powers a bit, too.”

“They were only fighting for a small period of time, I find it hard to imagine he overexerted himself that quickly.” Zane sounded a bit confused as he tried to process why Cole would say something like this. 

“Zane. We don’t know the full extents of our nightmares. They might know things we don’t about their powers. We might know more than they do. Kai’s nightmare could’ve used Kai’s powers against an admittedly weaker Lloyd, making him tap into more of his power faster to keep up and not get killed.”

Ah, that explained it.

“There are so many variables to this, so many things we do not understand. It is concerning.” Zane gently helped Cole set Lloyd down, walking to the bathroom to make a cold compress to help him cool down. Cole simply shook his head, looking down to Lloyd sadly. 

All of him was sad. This was just a kid. Lloyd had to grow up so fast, and he could only imagine what he went through in that nightmare of a realm. 

‘He really was just a kid.’

“I know. And he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

‘I wish we could’ve known all of this sooner. Why did the truth have to come out like this?’

“And the ‘best’ part is, we don’t even know the full truth. Nya knew something was up but she couldn’t tell us.”

‘The Kai from my realm was about to murder Lloyd. Do you really blame her? We didn’t have time.’

“No need to be sarcastic.” Cole couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “But you’re right. We didn’t. I just hope she’ll tell us what’s going on soon.”

‘I want answers just as much as you do, Cole. We’ll get our answers. I hope.’

“Alright, time for you to give us answers.”

“I’ll die before telling you asses anything!”

A threatening ball of water was taken out of a small bucket, hanging in the air over the now dry villain. 

Kaiser reluctantly shut up.

“Listen. For once in your lifetime, lay down your pride and listen to me.” The hard, steely gaze from the woman in the room only reminded Kaiser of what his sister was forced to become. 

He looked away at the thought.

“I want to know why. I want to know why you would hurt me, why you would hurt anyone after being hurt like that by Garmadon.” 

He was forced to turn his head when he heard a small crackle of electricity. 

“Why, Kai?”

“Why should I tell you? You just want me dead anyway, don’t you?”

“Answer my question and I’ll answer yours. It’s been years, Kai. Years. Don’t you understand? I went down there, risking my life after I was freed to get my big brother back. I went down there and risked my neck only for you to-“ Her steely gaze and voice cracked. She had to look away, clearing her throat for a moment. “Why would you do that?” Her voice broke again at the end, and the hardened rebel leader faltered for a moment.

She was just a little girl. She was just a kid, someone with dreams and aspirations. She didn’t ask to become this leader. She didn’t want to have to be so strong when she just wanted to curl up and hide.

But someone had to take the lead. Someone had to do it.

As these thoughts floated in his mind, Kaiser squeezed his eyes shut.

He could still remember the day. He could still see himself getting off that mockery of a throne.

That brief look of hope on his little sister’s face.

He burned her eye.

She was blind in that eye now. It was a pretty shade of blue, almost white. It apparently reminded Lloyd of someone. 

A tear escaped.

That was his sister. That was his sister, and he hurt her. He hurt her. Kaiser had been hurt and betrayed by Lloyd, so he then turned around and did the same thing to his own sister. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He hated that place. The Underworld was cold and dark. Even his fire couldn’t penetrate these two at times. And he was alone. 

In his feelings of being betrayed, he turned around and hurt the one person who could’ve saved him.

“Nya...”

When the young man spoke, Nya and Jay both tensed. It was hard to tell who was in control for the two of them, but it was clear they were both wary. For good reason, too. 

“I’m sorry.”

“W...what?”

“I’m sorry, Nya. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” He hissed this out, bending over to hang his head. “I hurt you. I hurt you for no damn reason but my own pride. I hurt you because Lloyd betrayed us. I was so... so scared. But I hurt you, all because of my pride. I’m such an idiot. I never should’ve laid a hand on you.”

The way his voice shook made Jay’s eyes soften.

“Nya, I love you so much. But I hurt you. I don’t deserve forgiveness, and there’s no way in heaven or hell I could ever make it up to you.” His voice got soft at the end. “I’m sorry, Nya.”

The silence after was deafening. 

There was a sound of scraping against the floor, and by the time Kaiser looked up, his sister had pulled over a stool and was on his level now. “You really did miss a lot, Kai.” She laughed dryly, shaking her head. “We think we know what happened to Lloyd.”

Kaiser’s eyes darkened.

“Hear me out. He isn’t entirely to blame for this. He actually did try to save you.”

“Heh, that’s what he told me.”

“And he was telling the truth. Kai, think about it. You heard about what happened to the others, right?”

“You’d be shocked at how gossip somehow made it down there to the underworld.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Kai, think about it. Jay was killed.” The two flickered their eyes to Jay, who was looking away with a somber expression. “Cole was painfully turned into a snake person. Zane went insane by Garmadon’s hands. You were sent to the underworld. I was freed. Those slowly go down in their intensity.”

Kaiser scoffed. “That’s debatable.”

“Listen to me. No one knows how Lloyd was tainted. But we know he was. He served his father, there were times I thought he was gleefully doing it. I wish you could’ve seen the look in his eyes. But one day... one day, when I had been captured, he jumped when his father entered the room.”

“Coward.”

“No, he wasn’t a coward. Kai, he was scared of his father. Jay and I talked it out, we think we know what happened. We think Lloyd joined his father to save you and me, at least.”

There was yet another brief silence.

“What does his fear have anything to do with it?”

“You really did miss a lot. After you left, we had to have a miniature confrontation with Lloyd. Cole made some flippant remark about his dad, and Lloyd was scared. He was scared of his father, Kai. We think he might’ve used whatever he did to all of us to keep him in line.”

Kai slowly let out a low whistle.

“I did miss a lot.”

“Yeah, you did. You really did.” Jay sighed, sitting down near Nya. He sent her a glance before looking to Kai. “Did he say or do anything around you that might also help prove that?”

“When I was about to be banished. He... Garmadon, he offered me the chance to join him.”

“Lloyd must’ve convinced him to give you that chance. You saved his life, after all.” Jay nodded his head.

“I think so, too. I refused. I would never join Garmadon. I saw Lloyd standing there, and I begged for him to do something. To say something, do something, to get him to stop. But he didn’t even look at me. Lloyd couldn’t even look me in the eye.” Venom came back into his voice and tone, his eyes narrowing in pure anger and hatred.

“He tried to save you, but you couldn’t join him. You wouldn’t join him.”

“And now look at what I’ve become.” The dry, angry laugh that escaped him made Nya sigh. 

“We need to get Lloyd in here. We need to get the full story.” Kaiser visibly tensed as Nya said this. Nya caught this look and sighed softly. “Kai, could you just let the Kai from this realm be in control? We get it. This is still hard for you.”

“It’s gonna be hard for him, too.”

Nya nodded at Jay’s addition. “We just need you to chill out for a little while. Take a break. Let Kai be in control. It’s about time we got to the bottom of this and cleared this all up once and for all. Jay, do me a favor and get the others in here.”

Jay nodded as he stood up. For once, he was mostly speechless. No jokes. No panic. No nothing. 

He wanted answers just as much as everyone else did. He walked out of the room, leaving the siblings together as he went to get the others.

They were going to end this nightmare once and for all.

Lloyd was... better. Thankfully. He was able to cool down and when he woke up, he had full control again. But he was a bit sore from the sudden action after being stuck in bed for a while. Not terribly so, but it was there.

Zane was quietly talking with him when Jay gently knocked on the door. Cole answered it, and the jokester in blue offered a wry smile.

“Nya wants us all to be in the same room together. It’s about time we got the full story.” Jay’s eyes drifted to Lloyd and suddenly softened. “How’re ya doing, buddy?”

“Better. But man... that hurt.” Lloyd laughed a bit, sitting up slowly with Zane’s aid. “It’s a good thing you guys showed up when you did.”

“We could see the clash of red and green from the Bounty. Nya and Jay grabbed us, and it’s a good thing they did when they did. That could’ve ended really badly.” Cole sighed as Zane carefully helped Lloyd. He was better after getting that rest. And he had cooled down tremendously, he could no longer feel heat radiating off his skin. 

“How is Kai?”

“Much better. He got to have a heart to heart with Nya. Nightmare Nya and Nightmare Kai, specifically.” 

“While that is wonderful to hear, I can only imagine the trauma left behind from what all occurred. It will take years for that to fully heal.”

“But it’s a good first step, Zane.” Cole sighed softly, opening the door wider so Zane could continue to help Lloyd. As much as Lloyd would’ve rather walked by himself, he didn’t mind the aid. 

He still felt a little off.

The door was opened for them when they got to where Nya and Kai were waiting for them. Kai was comfortably settled in a chair, no longer chained.

Kai was back in control.

Nya was sitting nearby, just watching quietly.

She could tell Lloyd was in control. And as great as that was, they needed his nightmare for this.

“Everyone sit down. We need to finish this.” 

“How so?”

“We need answers. The nightmares need some kind of closure, and I think answers will help us all.” Nya looked into the eyes of everyone in the room as she explained this. 

“But if we want answers, we need the root of the problem.” 

Kai was promptly elbowed in the ribs by his sister. 

“Lloyd, would you mind?”

“I don’t think he’s ready to talk about it, Nya.” Lloyd sighed and shook his head. With the near breakdown his nightmare had he didn’t think forcing him into a situation like this would be the best idea. He needed to rest. They all did. Kai, especially. His own nightmare had pushed him to quite the extreme. The heat radiating off of him was astounding. 

Kaiser really did hate Nightmare Lloyd. 

Lloyd didn’t want to force him to face him again. The fear and panic he felt while in control concerned Lloyd.

“Then can you explain what you know? Something happened, we could tell. You two just vanished into your own head when we were trying to get to the bottom of things earlier.” Cole piped up, looking between Nya, Kai, and Lloyd. There was an unspoken tensity between the three of them.

Between their three nightmares.

The bratty royal, the heroic rebel, and the vengeful guardian.

Three of the victims of the cruelty of Garmadon.

Lloyd exhaled heavily. He was thinking, eyes shut. After a moment he nodded and opened his eyes.

“Ask anything you want. I’ll explain with what I know.”

“How was your nightmare corrupted into doing all that he did?”

Lloyd audibly winced. A tough one, right out of the gate. The memory of his nightmare washed over him again and it took all of his strength not to lose himself in the traumatizing event.

“He was convinced by his father hurting you. All of you. He... he showed me. Garmadon used death,”

Jay shivered.

“Insanity,”

Zane looked away.

“And physical torture to sway the Lloyd from that realm. He... he broke down after seeing Cole. He had to watch what happened to Jay, Zane, and Cole. In that order.” 

Lloyd took a moment, swallowing.

“He finally snapped after watching Cole. He agreed to join him, on a few conditions. That Cole and Zane wouldn’t be killed, and that Nya would be freed. And that Kai would be offered a chance to join him. He agreed. But... Garmadon threatened him, saying if Nya became a problem...” He exhaled. “Lloyd just told him he would deal with her himself if that were to happen.”

Nya slowly leaned into Jay, who reassuringly wrapped an arm around her. 

Kai slowly covered his mouth.

“He... he did save him...”

“He did all that he could to save the others of his realm. He did. But as time went on... he lost himself in his act. He became the very thing he had grown to fear.”

“His own father.” Zane breathlessly released, Lloyd nodding his head slowly. 

Lloyd shut his eyes for a moment, leaning forward and resting his head in his hand. This was heavy. It was for all of them.

“Lloyd,”

When Lloyd looked to Kai, his eyes were different. Kaiser was back in control.

“I... I thought you betrayed me. I... I was the one who betrayed you.”

Lloyd’s eyes shut again, only for them to reopen with a red color. And a few tears in his eyes. 

“I’m sorry, Lloyd.”

“I’m sorry too, Kai. I should’ve done more, I should’ve fought back.” His voice cracked like a teenager during puberty. 

Jay silently laughed to himself at the thought. 

“The past is the past.” Nya gently pulled away from Jay, her own eyes different.

Gentle, filled with water. She looked like a war hardened veteran who just heard that the war was over.

“We have a chance to start over.” She set a hand on their shoulders, squeezing them gently.

“But... I hurt you all, I hurt you all so much...” Lloyd bowed his head again, tears starting to steadily flow down his cheeks.

“Not you.” Cole spoke this time, bending down in front of him. His eyes seemed sharp and cunning, but the edge had been softened. Like a docile snake. “Your dad. You couldn’t control him. You did what you could. Lloyd, you were just a kid. You were just a bratty villain wannabe who got his wish-“

He was promptly bonked on the head by a deadpan Jay.

“Lloyd this is not your fault. You have been given a new chance. You ran away from Darkley’s so many times because it didn’t feel right.”

“OuR nIGhtmaRe wAsN’T rIGHt, eItHer.” Zane pouted from the side, before lightly hitting his own head for normal Zane to get control back. 

“But this...” Kai spoke softly, smiling apologetically. “I think this is home.”

There was a long, hard silence from the boy. 

The youngest ninja.

The green ninja.

The dark prince.

The dark lord.

The boy. 

In the end, he was just a boy. He was just a child who was forced to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. And in the end, it almost crushed him. It almost turned him into the one thing he was told he would destroy. The dark lord.

He looked up, tears in his eyes and a sad smile on his face.

“I think we’re all home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did not create the nightmare au. Serpyra, formerly known as prpldragon, also known as serpyra.tumblr.com/faq, is the original creator. 
> 
> She has requested to no longer be associated with Ninjago. I am simply giving credit to who created the original au.
> 
> Kai and Zane’s respective nightmares are heavily inspired by the original, canon content created by friends of prpl’s on deviantart. I am continuing my search of them and will give proper links once I find them. If someone can point me in the right direction, I will gladly give them some sort of shout out.


End file.
